


While You Were Sleeping

by diefleder_tey



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Gen, Medical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:45:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diefleder_tey/pseuds/diefleder_tey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nishikido Ryo and Yasuda Shota are partners, two halves of a whole, doing very specific work for the government by "finding" persons of interest.  At least, that's the skin deep version...  No man is an island - unless he wants to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for nanyakanya for 2011's [**je_otherworlds**](http://je-otherworlds.livejournal.com). As for actual story notes, there are/could be a lot that I could put in. If you want to learn a lot of nerdy things, you can go [here](http://back-slow-desu.livejournal.com/6324.html) for the extended notes. If not, then the only thing you need to know is: a persistent vegetative state is very different from a coma; in short, comas do not last long and require you to be both unaware and unconscious. A PVS can last for a long time and you're awake, you're just not aware - much like being a vegetable. They really are two different things - if you'd like to learn more, check out the extended notes.  
> 

  
"Ryo, don't move."

Ryo stopped mid-step, groin-deep in muddy water and hair slick and matted from the latest rain, only a few minutes removed. From experience, it wouldn't be long before the rain started again and he was long over the idea. For a moment, everything was still - the sloshing sound and oscillating ripples from their crossing slowed and died. Whatever had spooked Yasu had scared away the animals around them too - Ryo could hear Yasu trying to quiet his breath in the silence entirely too well. "Don't move? Yasu?" He put out his hand, looking for its resting place on his partner's shoulder.

Yasu stood in front of him, watching the banks around them gather with aimed arrows and pipes - eyes trained on them, emerging from the foliage. He slowly reached up to his left shoulder where Ryo's hand was, taking it and pulling it down by his side, holding it.

Ryo turned his head back and forth, uselessly. "Did we find him?"

"I think he found us," Yasu whispered back.

With stillness, fish, or at least Ryo hoped they were fish, felt secure enough to swim closer to his legs and investigate. He could feel them gliding by, lightly grazing his pants before scurrying away - escaping possible retaliation - only to come back more brazen each time. It had been Yasu's suggestion that they cross by walking through the water; he assured Ryo that there wasn't a path around. With each increasing tap around his legs, he pulled on Yasu's hand harder, hoping to prompt some kind of response. He was going to start kicking soon - both the fish and maybe his partner.

"I think they want us to follow them," Yasu finally said, quietly confident.

"Who's 'they?'" He heard movement all around them and the crushing of plants under feet, suddenly picking up the smell of human sweat - belonging to neither Yasu nor himself - mixed with a confusion of metal and earth. "Hey," he called out to them. "Hey!"

Yasu nodded and with Ryo in tow, still barking, trudged through the rest of the water until he reached the first bank. He jumped up first, cautiously acknowledging their company before turning back to the lake. He had to crouch and lean over with his hand out until he reached Ryo, who instinctively smacked it away in panic before realizing who it belonged to and taking hold, climbing up with Yasu's help.

"Sorry," Ryo said, patting down his pants just in case something decided to come ashore with him. He rubbed his hand across his chest before hesitantly holding it out, waiting for Yasu to take it again. The hand holding used to bother him - then he got tired of tripping over everything and running into trees. Having an audience changed the dynamic again - he'd almost rather be laughed at crashing around than holding the hand of his partner like one would a date. As soon as Yasu clasped it in his own, Ryo used his other hand to pat up along his arm until he found Yasu's shoulders, letting go and grabbing on to them instead.

"We're looking for someone," Yasu asked their captors. He could tell they were as much a part of the jungle as any bird or insect they had come across. And they looked like Yasu would have imagined them - formed by the forest itself and mostly unclad to combat the rampant humidity. They kept a watchful eye on the two, but never replied in words or nods - they only pointed forward and moved as a pack to herd Yasu and Ryo along.

As they marched forward, following a path of trodden leaf litter that Yasu had somehow not been able to notice before, the sounds of the forest came back: birds calling out to each other and the rustling of leaves and branches. And the sharp gasping cries of spider monkeys that caused Ryo to dig his fingers into Yasu's shoulders a little too hard and mutter his own distress call of quiet curses. Their connection made them clumsy - anytime Yasu stumbled, Ryo would go with him. Any wrong step by Ryo, of which there were many by default, resulted in him smacking into Yasu's back.

"Are we almost there?" he finally asked, the impatience and growing mortification noticeable in his voice.

"How would I know?"

"Hey, Yasu. Yasu," Ryo said, quietly, pulling his chin close enough to rest it on his shoulder. It only made them more awkward, slower - jaw bone bouncing into muscle with each step and shoulder jerking into shoulder every time Ryo decided to swat at the insects buzzing around his head. "Are there leeches here?"

"I think so," he answered. "If he thinks so, there are."

"Shit."

"Why?"

"Would you look at something for me when we stop?"

Yasu glanced over his shoulder to see that Ryo had moved his hand to his waist, rubbing at the belt downward toward his groin. "No!"

"Come on!" Ryo prodded in a loud whisper. Thunder suddenly cracked above them, interrupting. "Great."

"I think we're here," Yasu replied, pulling his hand off. "I'll be right back."

A few steps before him, the rain forest parted to reveal a field sewn with people, like their captors but of all ages, roles and genders. They uniformly turned their heads in attention toward Yasu as he walked slowly out from the overgrowth. Regardless of action, each person stood up straight in response, moving backward to reveal a path to the staircase of a giant temple, a moss strewn shrine that he had to strain to see the top of. "You want me to go up there?" he asked.

No response. They continued to stare.

"Quit pushing," Ryo said, edging himself closer to Yasu as their captors herded him away from the jungle.

"He's up there," Yasu told him. "I think."

"Up where? Yasu? Yasu?" Ryo switched from annoyance to alarm as he felt hands pulling at his belt. "What are you doing?"

"You asked me to check for leeches," Yasu replied. "I'll do it before we go up-."

"Not right now!" Ryo yelled.

"But if I don't do it now-" His attention was diverted from Ryo's zipper by the collection of guards filing in behind them, pushing closer and closer and leaving little room to run back into the jungle. He felt like he had had enough time with them to get the gist of their very reserved method of communication - time to move on. "Okay," he said, taking a step back. "Would you mind helping my friend?" he asked.

Ryo's face distorted in mild panic. "That's not any- there's- not right now, okay? It's fine - it's fine!"

"He's blind, he won't be able to make it up the stairs alone," Yasu continued.

Ryo sighed out of relief. "Oh."

But soon let out another, "Oh," - this time in response to one of the largest guards putting an arm on his shoulders and another behind his knees, flipping and swinging him up into a hold. It was embarrassing, being carried like a rescued heroine in the arms of the hero - but after what seemed like the thirtieth or so stair up, Ryo told himself it was better than trying to navigate the climb on his own. Or, trying to do it based on Yasu's information. Worse yet, the guard could have slung him over his shoulder like a kill, or onto his back like a child. All in all, he decided he could live with the way it had turned out. By the time they reached the top and he was on his own feet again, all he could do was nod quickly, with a small shy smile and say, "Thanks." He could tell the guard was backing off. "Yasu?"

"I'm here," he replied, moving to Ryo's side and guiding him away from the edge. "We're at the top."

"Do you see him?"

"See who?" a new voice, curiously amused, asked.

There he was sitting before them, the obvious king in a throne made out of the bones of the jungle - both animal and plant - lounging with one leg over the side and the other tucked up to his chest, a childish, confident pose that somehow looked regal on his long limbs. Like the others, he wasn't wearing much on his torso, his feet bare - but there was a band around his forehead that connected gold in the front to a collection of large, long feathers in the back that were splayed out in a semi-circle, a halo of red and striped black that stood out from his shaggy brown hair. It looked heavy and cumbersome, yet he held his head straight without noticeable strain. The thunder crackled again and a group of fifteen serving girls began setting up wooden poles to stretch out a canopy made of hide to shield him from the oncoming weather.

Ryo took a step forward, not impressed by what he couldn't see. "Are you Taguchi Junnosuke?"

He widened his eyes and his smile, sitting up at attention. "Now that is interesting. Call me Junno."

"Finally," Ryo muttered in relief.

"We've been looking for you for two days," Yasu added in explanation.

"You must be hungry."

Ryo could barely wait for the last syllable to be fully uttered before answering an emphatic, "Yes!"

Junno looked over his shoulder, just in time to see one of the serving girls come to his side with a wicker platter full of fruit - most of which looked like brown apples covered in large scales. He picked out four, nodding to the girl and looking them over. "Where are you two from, the Midlands?"

"Ah, no," Yasu answered, considering the best way to bring up the topic at hand.

"Uplands? The Redlands?"

"Are you going to feed us?" Ryo asked.

Junno paused, then smiled and started to juggle the four pieces - the large feathers in his headdress waving back and forth as he quickly established a steady pace. "Eventually. It's good policy to find out why someone spent two days in a jungle looking for you before you feed them."

"About that," Yasu started.

Ryo was less patient. He didn't have an infinite resource to begin with, and his tolerance level was tested entirely too much between the insect bites and the hunger and the clammy humidity pooling on his skin, choking the air, tightening and dragging down his pants. And the monkeys. He was ready to write off the entire trip the minute Yasu told him there were monkeys watching them from the branches as they passed on the first day. "We were sent to find you, okay?"

"By whom?" Junno asked, speeding up his pace.

Yasu chewed on his lip. "That's a bit complicated."

It started to rain a fine mist and a couple of the serving girls ushered them to stand underneath the canopy they had just erected. Closer, Yasu was able to see that the girls weren't alone - behind Junno's throne was a collection of large animals, threatening and non - most of which he recognized, and Ryo would be unhappy to hear about later. They lay in wait, weaved through the rest of the servants. They watched as one, shifting slightly in the same direction, like they belonged to the same entity - a pumping lung or heart beating all in support of their living king.

As Ryo took a step forward, saying, "Look," the body of eyes focused on him. Yasu could see muscles tightening and the mass creeping forward just in case. He put a hand on his partner, pulling him back and orienting him in the right direction.

It didn't stop his mouth, though. "Do you remember how you almost died?"

"Ryo, I don't think that's a good idea," Yasu said quietly.

Junno pulled one of the fruits out of the cycle, tossing it Yasu's way before continuing on with the remaining three. "Can't say that I do."

The storm was in full swing and the mist turned into a steady rain, forcing Ryo to speak louder in order to compete with the backdrop splattering against the stone surfaces of the temple. "Really? You don't remember when you stopped breathing?"

"What he means is," Yasu interrupted, "do you remember being somewhere else? Somewhere completely different?"

"I've never been any other place," Junno answered, with a slight laugh. He stopped juggling, catching the fruit and holding it out to the side for one of the serving girls to take from him.

"No," Ryo replied, "I mean does he remember his lungs stopping."

"I don't think that's the best-"

"It's not a memory issue," Junno started.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" Ryo asked. "He doesn't remember either way so it doesn't matter if what we sa- what's that smell?"

Yasu shrugged. "This fruit?"

"He gave you fruit?"

Junno interrupted. "I don't think you quite understand."

"We understand just fine," Ryo answered. "You're going to share, right?"

"I don't really know how to peel it," Yasu said.

"How do you stop breathing air when you never breathed it in the first place?"

Ryo stopped, hoping the driving rain had garbled the words before they reached his ears. "What?"

"And how do you leave yourself?" Junno finished. "Whoever sent you apparently doesn't know much about gods."

Ryo rolled his blank eyes, sighing. "You're kidding, right?"

"Are you saying you didn't know?" Junno replied, genuinely shocked.

"Taguchi," Yasu said, "it's not that we don't believe you. But the people who sent us think you should...leave here."

"I am here - I can't leave it. All of these people- wait, I have a better idea," Junno told him. He waved one of the attendants to his side and with a soft smile, nodded at her in apology. "I'm sorry."

She was expressionless, accepting without so much as a nod or a blink. She shifted her weight, spreading her feet apart, and raised her skirt by sliding her hand up the inside of her right thigh until Yasu could see a strap wrapped around her flesh. She pulled something from it - a sharpened object, maybe rock - a dagger without metal - and held it out before him.

"What are you doing?" Yasu asked.

She raised the edge to her own neck.

"Wait," Yasu said, alarmed and moving to stop her. "Wait, you don't have to do that!"

"Do what?" Ryo asked. "Yasu, what's going on?"

It was already too late. In a swift, jerking move, she pulled the edge across her skin, ripping the muscle and tearing the artery at the side. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, blood pooling out between convulsions - running along the stonework and mixing with the pounding rain.

"That wasn't necessary," Yasu commented, turning his head away from her.

Junno stood above her, looking down with concerned eyes. "It takes a minute before they bleed out."

The words slithered across Ryo - it was too cold a sentence not to understand what had happened, even without his eyesight.

Junno crouched next to her, inspecting her before picking up the dagger. "This takes a minute too," he explained. Two more girls came over and stretched out the body before him, laying the dead girl on her back with her arms folded over her chest. When all that remained from her neck were splashes from the downpour of rain, Junno put a hand to her forehead. The benevolent smile returned. He pulled the edge across his own forearm and let the blood trickle down. It fell on her face and instead of rolling on the skin, it vanished - absorbed immediately.

Ryo reached out until he found Yasu's shoulder and pulled himself closer. "What's happening now?"

Junno shook his arm, baptizing her with a last few drops and stood up. No one moved to stop the bleeding or bandage him. A gasp sounded out as the dead girl breathed in once more. She sat up, momentarily blinking in confusion before he offered her the dagger back. She took it quickly, putting it in the sheath under her skirt, and returned to her position beside his throne as if nothing had happened.

"He brought her back to life," Yasu whispered back.

"Great," Ryo answered.

"I gave her life to begin with," Junno replied.

"No, no you didn't," Ryo countered.

"Ryo-"

Junno looked unfazed as he sat back in his throne. "There was nothing here before me. When I came, the ground was dirt and scattered with the bones of the dead and when I bled on them they turned into flesh. I spent days spreading every piece of my skin until there was a nation at my feet and the jungle to keep them and the rain to feed them. If you want, I can show you again - with something older, maybe? A new creation? It's harder to bring them to life than to bring them back, but I wouldn't be a god if I couldn't do both."

"When you came," Yasu repeated, cautiously. "Which means you were somewhere else before."

"I left the sky," Junno answered.

"No, you didn't," Ryo said again.

"What was the sky like?" Yasu butted in, hoping it was the opportunity they needed.

"Empty," he said, with a half smile. "Of course."

"I'm getting tired of this," Ryo said.

"You said you were sent to find me," Junno replied. "You found me. So what were you supposed to do after that?"

"We're supposed to convince you to go back," Yasu answered.

"And," Junno finished, "you never answered my first question." He smiled with cheshire amusement. "I can't go somewhere you won't tell me about - and you two keep asking roundabout questions so you don't have to explicitly say. Or what it has to do with breathing."

"Okay," Ryo said, nodding and crossing his arms. "Fuck it."

The rain started to slow and the sun crept out enough to make the rising fog off of the land hazy outside the safety of the canopy. Yasu looked down and noticed that the guards from before were obscured, as were the edges of the temple they stood on. It seemed like there were ripples in the clouds around them, but the only thing that he could see clearly was Junno himself...and the mass of life behind him that seemed to have moved closer during their conversation. He thought Junno might be the type to take anything in stride, or at least laugh at part of it, regardless of nature. But just in case, Yasu pulled Ryo's arm out of its fold across his chest and made sure his hand was close by.

"This isn't real," Ryo finally said.

"I know," Junno replied, still smiling.

Ryo let out a small frustrated yell.

"You know?" Yasu asked. "That doesn't bother you?"

"Should it?" Junno asked.

"Yes," Ryo shot back. "You're lying in a hospital somewhere like a vegetable in real life."

"Ah! So that's where you're from!" He seemed entirely too pleased. "And that's where you want me to go?"

Yasu fumbled for the right words only to simply say, "Yes."

Junno nodded in thought. "You want me to leave this?"

"It's not real," Ryo argued.

"But there's an entire nation here that depends on me, that worships me. One that took a lot of time and effort to make."

"They're not real."

"Does it matter?" Junno asked. "You're telling me reality is a hospital bed?"

"Y-yes," Ryo said, backing off on his tone only momentarily.

"I should give up being god for a hospital bed," Junno repeated. "That's not a very convincing argument. The way I see it, there's not a lot going for your version of reality."

"Except that it's actually real, for one thing," Ryo continued.

"Oh, well, that makes it so much better."

"Look, if you don't come back, you're going to die."

Yasu nodded. "It's true."

Junno shrugged. "You have to go sometime - even gods. Change is good. I'll go back to the sky - maybe I'll become the stars."

"It's not change, stupid, it's death," Ryo argued, exhausted with frustration. "You won't become anything - you'll just die. If you stay here, it's all going to end - so you can go back, live the rest of your life-"

"No thanks," Junno replied.

"Taguchi," Yasu asked. "Are you sure you don't remember anything before you came here? Anyone that you miss - friends, family?"

"I'm sure there are," he said. "And if they're my family and friends, they'd be pleased to know that I'm happy, no matter where I am."

"You won't come back?" Yasu tried. "You won't reconsider?"

"No." His smile was kind and broad. "Being a god's kind of nice. You know how sometimes in life you feel uncomfortable in your skin?"

"Yes."

"That's long gone right now," Junno finished. "This skin feels really good."

"That's bullshit - you have to go back," Ryo continued, taking a step forward. "I don't care if this 'feels good' - you don't understand, you-"

"Have a choice, right? You realize that, don't you?"

"Not if you're going to make the wrong decision."

Junno paused, sighing quietly before the cheshire smile broke out again; an amusing solution to his problem presented itself. "You were in the jungle for two days?"

"Yeah? ...yeah, we were! We spent two days looking for you, so you have to-"

"So, you must have come across some of the lakes and rivers," he continued. "Feel anything in there? Something swimming past your leg?"

Ryo stopped and mentally told himself not to think back to the sensation of what could have easily been predatory fish swimming by, angling for the best way to take him down while they stood in the lake. He didn't really know a lot about animals or the geography of where he supposedly was, but there was at least one terrifying conclusion he could make. "P-piranha?"

"Oh, there are much worse things in the water than piranha." Junno's smile was unnervingly wide, his eyes soft. "I'm pretty amazing, but I don't know if I can bring you two back."

"Maybe we should leave," Yasu suggested. He watched the wall of creatures behind Junno pulsate out to reach the intruders with growing limbs of vines and outstretched hands, leering eyes and jaws slowly but steadily oozing toward them, obeying the whim of their god. He grabbed Ryo's hand in a tight grip. "Go."

Ryo started rocking his chest back and forth as hard as he could, whipping his head in sharp convulsions as if in the middle of a seizure.

"Ryo," Yasu pressed. Some of the girls removed the canopy and Junno stood up, his arms out to greet the sun in the last mists of rain. Down below, the nation of peoples cheered deafeningly at the sight of their leader...or possibly at the sharp teeth and hungry breath of animals they too should have feared. "Ryo!"

Ryo put his all of his violence into shaking himself - so much so that he could barely hang onto Yasu. "Come on!" he grunted out. "Come on!" Desperate thrashing. "Come on!"

Yasu saw one of the large cats readying its stance, quick shifts of weight from foot to foot, to pounce on them. And as it pushed its mass off of the stone to launch toward them, he blinked.

As he opened his eyes, the greys and greens of the temple and the jungle were gone - taken away in the mist - revealing the bland cream color walls of the hospital room. He blinked a few more times and started to smile when the beeping of monitors filled his ears. His shoulders fell in relief.

Yasu was quick to bounce back and orient himself to the surroundings. He looked over to see that he was still holding Ryo's arm and that Ryo was bent over the body, chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. Taguchi Junnosuke lay in the hospital bed, almost too tall for it, staring up at the ceiling. His chart said that he had a tendency to smile and Yasu could see a small one on his lips.

"Well?"

Behind them in the room, their supervisor, a man by the name of Domoto Tsuyoshi, put down the notebook he had been writing in and sat forward in his chair.

"You got bored," Yasu commented. "We must have been in there longer than I thought."

Ryo pushed away from the bed and rubbed his face, stopping to pull Yasu's hand off of his arm when he realized it was still there. "He's a goner."

"You didn't find him?" Domoto asked.

Ryo's skin was crawling - itchy from the memory of bug bites, a thousand bug bites, and the grimy clamminess of the constant humidity. The last thing he wanted was to be in more water, but the only thing that would wipe it all away was an instant shower. And there was still the feeling that something wasn't entirely copacetic about his crotch. Through blurry and still unadjusted eyes, he spotted the bathroom in the corner and started pulling his shirt off en route. "He's not coming back. Let him go." He slammed the door behind him, narrowly missing their staff nurse.

"Hey, hey," Nurse Ohkura said to the closed door. "Room facilities are for patients only." No answer. "Hey, how many times do I-"

"What'd he mean?" Domoto continued, standing up and disinterestedly looking for the paperwork he was supposed to have at all times. "What was this one like?"

As far as Yasu knew, Tsuyoshi kind of hated his job. It required him to endure a lot of regulations and procedures that he wasn't interested in - and it came with the least enviable job of making hard decisions. Although, if Yasu had to guess, the reason he got the position in the first place was entirely due to his ability to say what no one else would. There was one perk, though. The down time he faced as the government liaison while they worked with the patients - or the downtime between patients - allowed him to pursue other endeavors, more creative ones. Well, two perks. "A jungle," Yasu answered. "South American? Central? Not really sure." Tsuyoshi was always interested in hearing about the mindscapes - Yasu assumed they supplemented his imagination. A boring, hard job gave him the time and springboard for what he really wanted out of life.

"Jungle, hmm?" he said, finally finding the right page in the folder.

"Ryo's right, he won't come back," Yasu finished.

"You're sure?"

"He said he wouldn't," he answered. "I don't think he'll change his mind."

"Ever?"

Yasu mulled it over, working through his instinctive feelings. "He already knew it wasn't real," he explained. "Ryo sort of told him the consequences and he...felt okay with them. He was happy."

"Told him, huh?" Domoto said, jotting down notes in the file. "That was dumb."

"I don't think it mattered." He sighed. "He won't recover." He didn't say it lightly - he never said it lightly.

Domoto turned his bottom lip out - partly in concentration and partly in disappointment. "He had a shot." His pen lingered on the last line of the form before him, hovering between two check boxes - "active" and "passive" - as he ignored Yasu to favor his own thoughts instead.

"How did he drown?" Yasu asked. "Was there anything in his file?"

Nurse Ohkura, who had moved from glaring at the bathroom to recording post "exploration" vitals in the computer, replied without looking away from the screen. "An eyewitness said he was showing off for friends before he went under. He already had some damage from cerebral ischemia by the time they pulled him out." He stopped typing to look over at the patient's bed. "He's lucky they got him before it got any worse."

"Get the Potassium chloride," Domoto interrupted, clicking his pen to finally check the first box.

"Wait a minute," Ohkura protested. "His prognosis is really good - can't we start him on zolpidem and-"

"If he's against coming back, he'll just end up in the system for a long time," he replied. "I trust Yasuda."

"I do too," Ohkura slightly hurt. "But-"

"I'll call Koichi to come in and talk to the family."

As far as Yasu knew, the only person who hated his job more than Domoto Tsuyoshi was his subordinate, Domoto Koichi. Koichi had the burden of telling families that seemingly fine persistent vegetative state patients had suddenly taken a turn for the worse overnight - slipped into a coma, into brain death, cardiac arrest, whatever worked best for the situation. For some, the hope that their loved one would eventually return would be too great and they'd break down right then and there; for some, the relief that the decision was taken out of their hands would be too great and they'd immediately try to hide their sudden shame for feeling as much. Koichi didn't particularly like either reaction, Yasu had heard.

But before joining the government, apparently Koichi had been an aspiring actor searching at the wrong economic time for a steady job. He may have hated dealing with families, but he enjoyed being Dr. Domoto Koichi, Head Neurologist in the Division of Neurocritical Care - and other titles he could relay with enough gravitas to cover for his obvious lack of real medical education. It was certainly the most challenging role he could have asked for.

"But..." Ohkura had the least say in the fate of a patient, even though he was the one who had to take it into his hands. As a result, he usually had the most to say about Domoto's decisions, even if he understood and agreed with them. Yasu thought that was probably why Ohkura was a member of their team - anyone too complicit in euthanasia had no place administering it.

The room was silent, save the operating sounds of machines - machines designed to monitor patients' lives - and the muted spray of the shower from inside the bathroom that soon whined to a halt. Within minutes, Ryo exited, half of his clothes on. "I'm going home," he announced, continuing straight to the main door and out of the room.

"Rough night," Domoto commented, closing up the file and gathering his things. "You've got a few hours before the morning shift comes in," he told Ohkura.

"Where are you going?"

"Dinner," he answered as he headed out the door.

As soon as they were alone, Ohkura looked at Yasu and asked, "You're sure he's okay with it?"

Yasu stood next to Taguchi Junnosuke, who was still staring at the ceiling with a slight smirk on his face, and put a hand to his cheek. Soon he was beaming. "He's happy."

Ohkura sighed, taking the IV bag down off of the hook. "That makes it worse, I think."

Yasu said his goodbyes and left the room still radiating cheer. He was entirely aware that such a feeling clashed with the matter at hand - his thoughts on the matter at hand - but he couldn't help it. That's just the way Junno felt.

  


~

  
Ryo felt like he was going to pass out. And that was before the shaking started.

The shower had only done so much - the world around him still felt like jungle, still smelled like jungle, tasted like jungle. He kept scratching at his arms trying to rip out the stickiness. He was only half-paying attention to where he was going - at this point, it was mostly automatic anyway. It had to be or he'd never get home after work.

The lingering feeling of the mindscapes would have been bad enough, but whatever he encountered always came out with him as well, like a bad smell embedded in clothes. If he felt dirty in the mindscape, he'd be unable to get clean back in real life. If he got too hot, he couldn't cool down. If he spent what felt like two days roaming through bug-infested constant dampness and trudging through parasite filled mud without a hint of food... And physical memory had a long lifespan.

All of that would have been enough to make anyone cranky. But Ryo had to deal with the physical repercussions as well. Like a blood sugar crash, his body would slip out of his control - as if it rejected him being back in his own mind. His head felt light and hollow, making every step feel as it if were part of a dream. His skin felt bloodless, clammy - a particularly fun set of sensations this time given the humidity of the mindscape - as his temperature began to oscillate between too hot and too cold. The uncontrollable shaking and shivering. And mentally - just about everything irritated the hell out of him.

He was miserable. This was one of the worst crashes yet.

Ryo stumbled into his go-to convenience store, heading straight for the beer. After a couple of years of the same routine, the late night staff had gotten used to him - most of them thought he was a serious alcoholic dealing with dependency. Well, that wasn't too far from the truth.

At the cash register, with a case in his arms, he grabbed whatever was in his pocket and held it out.

The young girl smiled politely. "I'll have to break open a new roll of-"

"Whatever," he said, frustrated, leaving the money on the counter. "Just keep the change." He would be mad later at giving her such a tip, but at the moment, it couldn't be helped. The second he got out of the store, he pulled out a can and downed it as fast as he could. It was another five minutes to his place - another beer and he'd start in that direction, drinking as he walked along. If he timed it right, he could stumble into his apartment feeling considerably better and let alcohol fueled sleep do the rest. Just the thought of it lightened his mood. Well, that and beer number two.

The cashier came out just as he was about to leave with a plastic bag, mostly full of packages of onigiri. "You forgot this," she said, handing it to him.

He looked down at the ground as he took it from her, smiling slightly. "Thanks." He opened one up immediately - hunger was common, but this hunger was the worst he had felt in a lifetime - and with his mouth completely full of rice asked, "How much did I give you?!"

"You still have change coming," she answered. "Hey, what is it that you d-"

"Gotta run," he said, scooping up the case and jogging away with a small wave.

His apartment was empty and mostly bland. The walls were bare, he didn't keep any artwork or pictures around. There was hardly any furniture - the floor was good enough - and what he did have belied a strategy of grabbing what looked good first and running out of the store. He didn't bother checking his cell phone for messages since his contact list was sparse, and once the tv was on, along with every light he owned, he flopped down on the futon mattress and opened the next can of beer. Eating onigiri nicely solved the hunger issue - it obnoxiously derailed the process of getting drunk.

Worse yet, he wasn't nearly sleepy enough.

It had all started in middle school, as if things during that period of life weren't awkward enough. He was sitting in class during attendance, watching his teacher look at the register, pause, and then glance up at her students. He loved her - well, like every other boy loved her. She was pretty, affectionate toward him and, most importantly, there. Later on he'd realize she was nothing special, but at that point, he couldn't imagine how he'd deal with the next period with the frumpy math teacher standing in front of him, let alone the rest of his life, without her.

She was getting closer to his name - "Nakamura?"

Ryo lived for that moment. His seat was in the front row - a fortunate discovery he made during the first week of that year. Most kids didn't want to be that close, but soon, she'd call out his name and he'd answer and their eyes would meet - his proximity granting him the chance to connect, even for a brief moment. She'd call his name and look right at him and smile. That moment was everything - he'd developed an irritating habit of punctuality because of it. Even if he felt ill, he'd at least try to make it to home room for morning attendance.

"Nishikido?"

"He-"

He stopped mid-answer. At first Ryo thought maybe he was still asleep, merely dreaming of his teacher. Everything had gone pitch black and he was somehow standing, his desk nowhere around him. The idle chit chat of the other students during roll call was gone. He thought maybe he was in the process of waking up. But no matter how wide he opened his eyes, he couldn't see his ceiling or the covers over his head - just pitch black. Rapid blinking did nothing.

And it smelled. Not of breakfast, but of salt and mold. There was no alarm clock ringing in his ears, but a loud roaring of motion somewhere behind him. It was bitingly cold and the realization that he was neither dreaming nor in school caused him to panic until he had trouble breathing and fell to his knees, a sharp surface of exposed rock beneath them.

And then...he was back at his desk, staring at his teacher as she moved onto the next name.

He threw up everywhere.

He was sent home and for the rest of the week endured some lingering snickers from his classmates - after all, public vomiting was a serious offense in middle school. But these were small consequences and by the next week, Ryo had attributed it all to a passing bug.

The second time it happened, though, he was talking with a friend at lunch. It lasted for hours and left the taste of metal in his mouth - it cost him a few actual relationships. By the third, Ryo knew it wasn't some lingering virus - and so did everyone else. Other kids had noticed him blanking out; the school nurse highly suggested seeing a doctor.

The doctors thought it was neurological. At 15, they made him lie on a slab with an IV in his arm pumping in a radioactive dye that tasted worse than it smelled and that he could feel squeaking along in the veins in his neck. His head was sandwiched between two plastic barriers to keep him from moving and he was slowly pulled back into a tube of a machine. They had told him he could close his eyes during the test but at that point he was afraid to - he wanted to shut his eyes as little as possible, worried that he'd never get them open again.

To keep the machine cool, a constant blast of air conditioning was pumped in - he was just wearing a t-shirt. He couldn't stop shivering, despite the doctor coming on the intercom and asking him to stay still. The machine fired up, with loud, thunderous clacking, like being stuck in a tube in the middle of a noisy clock for fifteen minutes. The overwhelming sensations, between the noise and smell and taste and feel, reminded him a lot of what it was like to experience the episodes - except at least during an MRI, he could see. It wasn't particularly enjoyable.

The results showed nothing significant - the doctors suggested more tests: more scans and samples until they could pinpoint the cause of the hallucinations.

That's when Ryo went from being a fairly vocal and active pre-teen to a shy and awkward teenager who constantly feared that he'd black out at the worst times possible. He missed more and more school - purposely skipping when he didn't have to miss for a doctor's appointment - and by the time he realized it only ever happened around other people, he had quit school all together. By 16, his life had become a string of procedures trying to figure out what was wrong with his head.

Seven beers in that night, he was starting to slur just a bit and was staring up at the ceiling, ready to throw the remote at the tv for playing nothing but crap. The alcohol wasn't doing its job - he wasn't sleepy at all. And the last thing he wanted was to sit around, conscious, waiting with nothing to do but relive the mindscape and sweat through the crash until finally non-drug induced sleep came about, bringing with it vivid memory filled dreams. Drinking himself to sleep meant he'd be completely hungover in the morning, but no hangover ever felt as bad as what he had to endure otherwise. Hangovers were worth it if he could bypass the dreams. Hangovers were easy. Hangovers were routine.

It had become his habit to spend the next two to three days pumping up his adrenaline in every solitary way possible - riding motorcycles, going bungee jumping - creating a roller coaster of alcoholic lows and thrill-seeking highs until finally, he'd just about even out to normal life before being called in for the next patient. As miserable as Ryo felt after his work, he wasn't particularly bothered about the cycle that came with it. If anything, the routine and near constant stimulation was comforting.

To Ryo, it was just life.

Even with nothing good on, he left the tv playing. The noise usually provided a good backdrop, something for his brain to listen to so it stayed slightly distracted at all times. This time, it wasn't working either. Nothing was really going according to habit and it was pissing him off.

He had been the one to figure out what was really wrong with him, too. The side effect of isolation on a teenager was a shyness that he exhibited whenever speaking with people he couldn't avoid, like doctors. Staring at the ground or constantly glancing to the side at the wall just became the most comfortable way to communicate. And the more he did it, the fewer episodes he had.

"Feeling any different?" his doctor had asked during one appointment.

"Not really," he answered. "I think, maybe..."

"Hm?"

Ryo had to be sure. He looked up, caught the attention of the other man, eye to eye, and suddenly the world went black. Black and rotten smelling. Seven minutes later, he was blinking away the light of the examination room, immediately turning away from the doctor's expectant cough. "I think...it happens when I look people in the eyes," Ryo said.

His doctor continued to listen, writing as he went along. And after ten minutes of Ryo explaining how it made perfect sense and how things felt too real during each black-out to ever be the result of illness, he excused himself momentarily to get a sample of a new sleep medication he thought Ryo needed to try.

As soon as the door clicked, Ryo grabbed his file and looked over the notes. _Might be psychological_.

The next day he left home, moved from Osaka to Tokyo, and took a job as a night custodian in an office building.

It didn't click until sometime later that he wasn't just blacking out but actually going into people's minds. To be fair, he couldn't really understand that until he met Yasu.

And as he continued to stare at the ceiling that night, thinking about that day instead of falling asleep or zoning out to infomercials, Ryo decided he was drunk enough to break his routine even more. He got up, grabbed the remaining four beers and slammed the door carelessly behind him. By the time he crossed town and knocked on Yasu's door, he had already finished them and picked up another case.

"Ryo," Yasu said, surprised, stepping aside to let him in. "I didn't know you knew where I lived..."

"Yo!" Ryo giggled. "Oi, Yasu, let me in, it's fucking cold out here," he said, unnecessarily pushing his way past. He started to take his jacket off, only to realize that he had left it in the apartment - prompting another round of red-faced smirks. "Oh...no one's here?"

Yasu walked behind him, taking a moment out to push Ryo's shoes - which he had just kicked off without much thought - into alignment. "Nope," he stated simply.

"Oh." Ryo stopped to turn around and smile. "I just always thought- what's this?" he interrupted himself. He wasn't sure how drunk he was at that point, but walking down the hallway, which was plastered with brightly colored strange images on canvas paintings, was like stumbling through a cheap art house. It figured. Yasu almost always came into work wearing something odd - in complete contrast to Ryo's standard jeans, leather jacket and plain t-shirt. He said it helped him focus, a way to stand out, just in case, so that he never got lost in someone else's psyche - but Ryo had always suspected that he was just weird. The paintings only supported his theory. They were full of limbs and eyes and things Ryo thought he recognized, but couldn't quite tell given the abstract color schemes and the unusual, exaggerated style. They lined the hall, on both sides, hung on bright red walls.

Before Yasu could answer, Ryo had already moved onto something else. "You play?" He had made it to the main room, where all the standard furnishings had been replaced with art projects. Nothing looked normal - not even Ryo's version of normal, which in and of itself was a little off. Instead of a table, there was a desk full of half-written pages. Instead of a couch or chair, there was a wooden bench with an easel attached, surrounded by containers of paint and charcoal. And instead of a tv, there was an amp and three different guitars. Ryo set the case down on the floor to pick up the acoustic and immediately started to pick at the strings. The sound came out weakly, confused. He smiled again and blushed slightly. "I'm not that drunk, that's what it usually sounds like."

"You're not clamping down hard enough," Yasu replied.

"Oh," he answered, smiling, trying it again and laughing as it worked. "Oh, cool." He stopped to pull a can out and held it up to him. "Want one?"

"Sure."

They never really spent that much time together outside of work, and they had certainly never spent time hanging out in each other's personal living space. For a while, Yasu was happy to go back to the easel, taking a drink every now and again while Ryo continued to bang out notes, occasionally vocalizing his frustration when he couldn't remember the chord progression to his favorite songs. Dinner that night hadn't lasted long and the rest of Yasu's contact list of acquaintances were all either busy or already asleep. With nowhere to really go, he fell back on Plan B - home to a blank canvas that needed filling.

Which was good, he told himself. The longer he waited, the harder it was to imagine exactly what it was he wanted to paint. It was fortunate that it worked out that way and he had time when he needed it. Before Ryo showed up, he had already drawn out loose lines of a figure with a pencil and picked out the colors he wanted for later. Ryo's appearance was merely an added bonus.

"What is that?" Ryo asked, coming up behind him and leaning on his shoulder for a closer look. "Did you do all the stuff in the hallway too?"

"Most of them," Yasu replied. "It's from work."

"What?"

"He was wearing a really interesting headpiece today," Yasu replied, coolly, continuing to flesh out the picture with his pencil. "It was kind of like a movie, with all the mist and the sun breaking through on top of the temple, and the animals behind him. It felt like...I just liked it," he said, briefly turning to Ryo.

Who looked somewhat unnerved. "Animals behind him?"

Yasu nodded. "They were starting to come at us when we left - I think they were protecting him."

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I didn't want to scare you."

Ryo pushed him in the shoulder, but didn't say anything. Instead he sat down behind Yasu, squeezing onto the end of the bench and peered over to watch as the drawing continued. He didn't expect Yasu to capture the patient's likeness exactly - nor did he really think the sketch would fill him in on everything that he missed - but something about the way Yasu drew Taguchi seemed off. The face seemed wrong, distorted - and instead of standing upright like any normal man, the jungle king lacked the right spine. He was curved like a wave, with feathers surrounding his entire head without any noticeable headpiece. If anything, he thought Yasu was drawing him as he wanted to be remembered - a god - instead of what was actually in the mindscape. But there was no way for him to really know. The thought escaped his mouth. "That's really what he looked like?"

Yasu paused and very carefully nodded. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" Ryo laughed.

"When I get home, it all starts to skew and fade out," he answered. "It's the best I can remember - I look at it while we're there but when I try to think about it later, I know it's not quite right. It's like I can't take it with me."

"You're lucky." Ryo flopped on the floor and stretched out. "I think it's worse when I'm done."

"But that's great."

"No, it's not," Ryo complained. "You get to see everything and leave it at work. I go home and I still feel like I'm getting drenched when it's dry out."

"But you get to experience all those things," Yasu continued, turning around on the bench to face him. "I can't ever get back what I see in there. It's like..." He looked over at the acoustic guitar Ryo had abandoned earlier. "Have you ever struck the right chord? And the sound rings out and you could just crawl inside of it and stretch out across space and connect with everything? And then you suddenly pat down on the strings and kill the note? It's just gone."

Ryo stared at him with a slightly irritated expression. "No."

"You don't understand," Yasu said. "It's like how things are so much more intense in dreams."

"Exactly," Ryo answered, slightly frustrated. The only person who could ever possibly understand how he felt had no clue. "And it won't go away - it's a pain in the ass."

"Maybe," he conceded. "But it's better than suddenly feeling like you've been extinguished."

Even if he couldn't quite understand how anyone could be jealous of what he had to go through, Ryo at least knew what it felt like to have a vital part of life just suddenly turn off like a lightswitch: every day he went to work, he had to relearn how to function blind all over again. He couldn't begrudge Yasu feeling frustrated.

Ryo chewed on his bottom lip and then scooted closer to him, holding out his arm. "Go ahead."

Yasu hesitated and then nodded, touching his graphite smeared fingers to Ryo's wrist.

After a moment of silence, he finally asked, reluctantly, "Well?"

Yasu smiled, his cheeks flushing slightly.

Ryo pulled his arm away, flopping back on the floor. "Shut up," he muttered. "I'm not embarrassed."

It wasn't just embarrassment. The minute Yasu's skin touched Ryo's, he felt the warm mix of emotions slide up his arm until it settled into his chest, spreading out through his body like blood. He might have been frustrated earlier, he wasn't sure. He might have been disappointed. If he had been either, it didn't matter because now he definitely felt both, along with the embarrassment, a little bit of impatience and, surprisingly, sympathy and warmth.

Unlike Ryo, he couldn't remember a time when it was different, any sort of transition period. Ever since he was a kid, people commented on what a good friend he was, how caring he was, how Yasu could always read the mood and know exactly what to do. He was happy when he was with happy people; when people cried, he cried with them. People said he empathized well - but it wasn't just that. He didn't just understand what another person was feeling. He shared it. He synced up with it. It entered his body and became a part of him. And the closer the proximity, the more intense the connection.

Which made being alone without some sort of distraction almost unbearable. It wasn't that Yasu needed to tap into someone's emotions, like a drug fix to satisfy a physical craving. It was more like a security blanket. At night alone he would often lie in bed, waiting for his brain to turn off, and marvel at how empty everything was - how blank. When an emotion did creep in, he was never sure if it was actually his or just a matter of tapping into the feelings of a neighbor nearby - he never knew where he stopped and began. And with people around, the question was moot - Yasu liked it that way. It felt better - felt safe. With constant company, he'd never have to face the possibility that he really didn't have any emotions of his own - an idea that, if true, would be unbearable. He had long ago decided that being subject to the feelings of others was better than being subject to none at all

It was funny. Yasu always knew what a person was feeling, but he couldn't access much more than that. Ryo could go into someone's mind, but couldn't make sense of what was there. Ryo was blind without Yasu, and Yasu was grounded without Ryo. Two halves of a whole: Ryo was the doorway, Yasu the lightswitch.

"Thanks," Yasu said.

Ryo wanted to change the subject. "That guy really pissed me off," he said, yawning. He was still on the floor, stretched out - eyes heavy. He could barely get the words out. "Who purposely gives up like that? S' stupid."

Yasu looked back at the canvas and the outline of Taguchi's face and arms. Originally their job was just to "find" people, to go into a patient's mind for signs of hope - they weren't asked to try to bring anyone back. But it couldn't be helped. The economy was in jeopardy and the government needed to cut back; they were tired of subsidizing vegetative patients who might be hospitalized for decades with no hope of recovery. It was simply too expensive; a patient with no cognizance left wasn't worth the money to sustain, or resuscitate if they deteriorated into any sort of organ failure. Technically, Ryo and Yasu were hired as experts to help decide which "encumbrances" could be closed and taken off the books. But neither could simply go in and just come out when the consequence was death. And their department was fine with that - standard private medical policy was to let life persist as long as possible; their attempts made everyone else involved sleep a little better at night.

Which is what made Taguchi so frustrating. It wasn't the vegetative state itself that was the problem - but whatever caused it in the first place. And people didn't just magically fix themselves and wake up. The longer a patient was under, the smaller the chances of ever coming back. Ryo and Yasu had been working for three years with varying levels of severity and success - they got used to losing more than winning. They became as cold to the reality as they could manage in order to get through, in order to do their best. They knew, even agreed, that sometimes what seemed like the best option was the least kind.

But they had never seen anyone with as good of a chance as Taguchi.

"You think he was wrong?" Yasu asked.

Ryo wasn't sure how the government had known about him or how they found him or how they thought to team the two up - and he didn't really care. He never asked about it, not even what Yasu was doing before they found him too. He rolled over on his side, eyes closed and barely hanging on to consciousness.

Side effects withstanding, his job let him live how he wanted and it beat being a janitor, right? He drifted in and out, slurring through the last words before falling asleep: "I'm worried he's right."

Yasu looked at him. "Yeah, but, about what?" There was no response.

  


~

End of Part 1


	2. While You Were Sleeping

  
It wasn't long before they were called in again.

"I'm not really optimistic about this one," Domoto told them as they walked into the hospital room. He had already taken his jacket off and had thrown the case file on the edge of the bed where the patient lay.

"Why's that?" Ryo asked, making the mistake of watching Ohkura as he checked the catheter bag.

Ohkura looked up to answer, catching Ryo's glance by accident. He quickly closed his eyes to break the connection. "Sorry!"

"Ugh," Ryo said, blinking out of it and rubbing his nose. "It stinks in there - if you ever slip into a coma, I'm not coming after you."

"Thanks," Ohkura grumbled. "I said I was sorry."

"Masuda Takahisa," Domoto interrupted. "He...um..." He picked the file back up and started thumbing through it.

"Did you even read it?" Ohkura asked.

The patient in question was in the middle of a sleep cycle, with his eyes closed. That always freaked Ryo out - he had some trouble understanding how it all worked, how someone could be conscious but not aware but still asleep. Everything looked peaceful: the monitors beeped steadily, he was still. And the eyes didn't seem to be moving underneath the lids too much. That was even worse, when Ryo had to pry open their eyes and their gaze was unfocused and wandering - often unsynchronized.

"He's missing an arm," Yasu said, pointing.

"He apparently was on his way to work when he was struck by a car, driver was never identified," Domoto read aloud. "They had to amputate the right arm."

"He still looks pretty rough," Ohkura commented.

"That was a little over a year and a half ago," Domoto finished.

Yasu pursed his lips at the comment. "That long? That's not good. Still, trauma-related," he said. "There's a chance."

Domoto looked at him for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah."

"Ready?" Ryo asked, already by Masuda's side, flexing his fingers.

"Ready," Yasu said, moving next to him. Ryo pushed his sleeve up and Yasu put both hands on his arm, instantly flooding with the whole of Ryo's visceral attitude . He was used to it at this point - the simmering anxiety before entering, even after three years, calmed him. It would worry him if Ryo ever lost it completely.

"Ready," Ohkura echoed, standing on the other side of the bed with his hands on the patient's head, ready to help hold the eyes open.

Domoto shrugged. "Whatever."

"Okay," Ryo said, pulling open Masuda's eyes with a forefinger and thumb on each side. He quickly shut his own to give him a chance to take a deep breath before going in. He paused. "Okay," he repeated, opening his eyes and leaning over to stare directly in.

Yasu moved with his partner and took a deep breath too, slowly closing his eyes - sinking with the exhale. He opened them to fresh air. He let go of Ryo. "You'll like this," he commented, looking around.

"We're outside?" Ryo asked, trying to adjust. He turned away from Yasu by accident. He was sure of his assessment - he could feel the sun and the breeze, smell the trees - hear the birds and a small stream running nearby.

"Yeah," Yasu replied. "In the Edo period, too"

"What? How do you know that?"

"Because," Yasu said, turning him around gently in the right direction. "I'm looking at Masuda right now and he looks like a samurai."

Ryo almost choked. "You're kidding me." He pushed at Yasu, trying to usher him in the right direction while grabbing onto his shoulders to follow wherever he went. "What are you waiting for?"

Yasu nodded and cleared his throat. "Masuda?" he said, approaching the stream.

The young samurai turned to smile at them. "Yes?" He was sitting on a stump next to the stream, the remains of what looked like lunch next to him in the grass.

"Are you busy?" Yasu asked. Ryo punched him in the shoulder.

"Not really, I was just eating lunch," he explained. "I decided to stop and eat by the stream so I could wash my hands off since the rice is really sti-"

"That's great," Ryo interrupted, peeking out behind Yasu's shoulder. "Do you remember what you were doing before that?"

He thought for a moment. "I was admiring the scene a bit."

"No," Ryo grumbled. "Do you ever remember not being a samurai?"

"When I was really young?"

"What he means is," Yasu started, "do you remember this being different before it was this?"

Masuda looked at the pair and smiled politely. "Um..."

"This isn't real," Ryo blurted out.

"It's not?" he replied, looking around. "That's a shame. It's pretty."

"You're in a dream, sort of...not exactly," Ryo continued. "You're not a samurai, okay?"

"I'm not? Oh."

"Your body is someplace else and you just think you're a samurai."

"I see."

Ryo frowned. "Are you making fun of me?"

Masuda smiled nervously. "No?"

"You're taking this too well," he grumbled. "Something's not right, it never goes this easy."

"I thought you wanted it to be easy," Yasu whispered, slightly annoyed.

Ryo shot him a look, or at least he thought he did - he couldn't be sure. "You need to realize this isn't the real world, just part of your imagination - snap out of it and get out of here."

"Okay," Masuda said, amiably.

"Really?" Ryo asked.

"If I'm not supposed to be here, I should leave," he started.

Ryo smiled, a satisfied and wholly obnoxious grin, as he shook Yasu's shoulders. "Great! Okay, let's go home."

"How do I get there?"

"What?" Ryo asked, his smile falling.

"This real world I should be in, how do I get there?" Masuda asked. "Meditation?"

"It's not Buddhism..."

"Sort of," Yasu said, scratching the back of his head. "It's kind of like achieving a higher level of existence. You just have to...figure it out for yourself. Make your own way to it."

Masuda nodded. "It wouldn't be enlightenment if it was easy to get to."

"There you go," Ryo added. "We'll keep him on the sustain list, maybe he'll get there," he said quietly to the side.

"Yeah, maybe that's how it works," Yasu replied.

"I'll work on that," Masuda continued.

"Great," Ryo repeated. He let go of Yasu and took a step back. It seemed like it was taking longer and longer for his muscles to react in the real world; all he needed was to move physically, just the slightest bit to break the line of sight and send them home - an automatic response, like sleepwalking - but getting his body to comply was easier said than done. He started rocking back and forth slowly, building up speed.

"Thanks," Masuda said. "If you'll excuse me, I have something I need to finish first. I'll definitely start meditating more, probably next week."

Yasu reached behind and grabbed Ryo by the shirt, pulling him forward and stopping the exit. "Something you need to finish first?"

"What are you doing?" Ryo asked.

"We were really lucky to find him so fast and he was so agreeable," Yasu whispered. "Maybe we can help him?"

"Help him?"

"The sooner he finishes whatever he still needs to do, the sooner he can start working on coming back," Yasu answered. "Come on, just a little longer?"

"We've been here for...fifteen minutes? Come on, Yasu, that never happens."

"Exactly. What could it hurt?"

"Yasu, no-"

"Please?"

Ryo sighed. "Fine."

"Maybe it's something we can help with," Yasu said immediately, with a giant smile. "Would that be okay? Can we join you?"

"Sure," Masuda replied. "Ah, most people call me Massu, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, my name's Yasuda," he replied. "And this is Zatoichi, the blind swordsman."

"Yasu!"

"Oh!" Massu said, impressed smile breaking out. "You must be very skilled, then."

"Yeah, I must be," Ryo nervously laughed, reaching out with his hand to find something to swat at.

"That's good to hear - maybe you really can help me, then. I was on my way into the main city to take care of-" Massu stopped. He stood up and put his left hand to the hilt of the sheathed katana hanging at his right side, sliding the blade out about a thumb's worth. He held it steady as he looked around. "Did you hear that?" he whispered.

"Just the stream," Ryo answered. "The birds stopped."

He smiled. "You really are skilled. Maybe we should talk somewhere else?" He let go of the katana and picked up the cloth he had carried his lunch in with his left hand. The sleeve on his right covered his entire arm, which hung at the side. He pointed to a path that followed beside the stream and motioned for them to move on. "This way. We'll cross a little further down. It's wider there, but it's a quicker route."

"Do we have to?" Ryo said, dragging his feet behind Yasu, who had already grabbed his wrist to lead him along. "Can't we just go around it or something?"

"You're afraid of bridges?"

"Oh," Ryo replied, smiling out of relief. "No, bridges are fine. I like bridges."

"Ah. You're afraid of water," he remarked. "It's okay, kappa only go after small children, you know."

"I'm not scared of kappa!"

Yasu was able to take a closer look at him as they walked - he had scars and signs of old injuries in the exact same places as the Masuda Takahisa who was lying in bed, forever recovering from a car accident. The same scratch across the right eye - bandages poking out from the opening of his clothes from the same gash across his chest. And the arm. It looked like it was still there, but he never flexed the muscles to move it. The way his mind compensated for all of the physical loss made sense. Yasu couldn't help but admire how completely well designed it was - so much so that his grip on Ryo's wrist was almost nonexistent.

"I'm tired of being in water, okay? That's all," Ryo ended, somewhat pathetically. "We are crossing at the bridge, right?"

"Did you give up your sword?" Massu asked, ignoring his question.

"What do you mean?" Yasu replied.

"You're ronin, right? You said Zatoichi's a swordsman?"

Yasu saw him tuck his hand against the folding of his clothing and inch toward his sword again. He jerked on Ryo's wrist before the other could answer the question flippantly. "Not exactly," Yasu said, cautiously. "No one has a lord where we come from."

"I see," Massu responded, regaining his cheery demeanor and letting his hand drop to the side. "More like explorers, then?"

"Something like that."

"Sorry, I had to make sure those weren't your friends at the clearing."

"Friends?" Ryo asked.

"The reason I'm heading into the main city," he answered. "There's a rumor some of the ronin in this area are going to set fire to the buildings."

"We weren't sent to stop you, if that's what you're wondering," Yasu offered.

Massu paused. "Then, yes," he said, pleasantly. "We are crossing the bridge. You still don't have a sword, though, so...here." He pulled out his wakizashi, the shorter sword all samurai carried, and took Ryo's hand, giving it to him. "You might need this."

Ryo was torn. On the one hand, he knew it was a bad idea - blind men weren't meant to be armed. On the other hand, he couldn't help but let out a, "Ah, cool."

"You're trying to stop the fire?" Yasu asked, grabbing Ryo's wrist again and leading him over the small wooden bridge.

"No," Massu explained. "I'm trying to stop what's going to happen while they set the fire. I think it's just a distraction." His demeanor and tone stayed pleasant, almost as if he were proud to have figured it all out. "I heard about a similar fire a few cities away. While the samurai tried to put it out, another group snuck in and attacked the daimyo. I doubt the ronin came up with it on their own - especially since no one ever saw the other group."

Soon, they were in the outskirts of the main city, with the daimyo's castle in sight. As they walked the streets, Massu stopped every so often to ask a few townspeople if they had had any trouble that day.

"Besides the drunkards? Not really," one woman commented.

"Ronin?" Yasu asked. "Has it already started?"

"Not sure," Massu answered. "That's pretty normal. Did you know? The Shogun's forcing the daimyo to cut their military budgets so they can seize their lands. Most of the samurai now are jobless - the ones that don't kill themselves have been hanging out in the cities, causing trouble."

"Oh good," Ryo commented. "He's a trivia nerd."

"Not all of them, though," Yasu said. "You haven't been causing trouble."

"I'm still employed," he replied.

"How does that work with your arm?"

"His arm's missing here too?" Ryo asked, pulling at Yasu. "You didn't say anything about that."

"I forgot."

"We're about to go fight a coup and you forgot to mention it?"

"The daimyo likes me because I've always been very loyal to him," Massu explained. "When he let most of the samurai and shinobi go, he was worried about them defecting to another lord and selling secrets - it was our job to dispose of them before they could. I was in charge of taking out his highest ranking shinobi. I couldn't do it, but he didn't have a problem maiming my arm."

"Ah, what is that?" Ryo interrupted, sniffing.

"What?" Massu asked.

"I smell something burning."

"Someone on the street?"

Ryo shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Come on," Massu said.

They ran the rest of the way to the castle walls, arriving just as the samurai charged out in response to the fire. Massu and Yasu could see the smoke starting to billow out on the other side and hear the panicked wave of news spreading across the city. Within minutes, the road in front of the castle was empty save a few necessary guards and lingering townspeople trying to finish their business as hurriedly as they could - an old man, a monk and a young girl. Massu pointed in one direction and Yasu nodded, running around the corner. "Nishikido, stay here," he said before jogging off the opposite way.

"...what did you call me?"

It was too late, Massu was already gone. Ryo kept his hand on the wakizashi, pushing his back up against the wall. Maybe his real name had slipped out at some point on the walk there and he had forgotten.

"Ah, excuse me," he said, as he felt someone brush past him. The edge of a woman's kimono dragged over his foot and suddenly, for a flash, he could see her. She had a paper parasol on her left shoulder, shading her face from the rest of the city, and a pink kimono with red and white flowers that grew in size as they fell from the shoulder to the tail. She smiled at him - a charming smile that had a slightly wicked edge to it - while pulling a strand of hair back over her ear, but never turned her head to look at him straight on. She was gorgeous. And then it was dark again - so quickly that Ryo couldn't help but immediately put his hand up, accidentally bumping her elbow as she left.

He rubbed his eyes. Cavers were known to sometimes turn off their equipment in safe areas in order to experience pure darkness and end up hallucinating light instead; he wondered if the vision of the girl wasn't just his brain getting tired of being blind. If that were the case, he thought, at least his brain had good taste.

"See anyone?" he heard Massu ask, his footsteps echoed by Yasu running back from the other side.

"No."

"Me neither," he answered. "Maybe I was wrong."

"You didn't see the girl?" Ryo asked.

"What girl?"

"There was a girl walking down the street, she passed right in front of me."

Massu turned his head to the gate - the two guards that had been there were missing. "That's him, come on."

"Him?!" Ryo barked. "I'm pretty sure she was a girl."

"No she wasn't."

"Trust me on this-"

"No, she wasn't," Massu insisted. "Shinobi are paid to go undetected - would you ever expect a girl to attack the daimyo?" he asked.

Ryo ran behind Yasu, trying to hold on to part of his clothing to keep up. After thinking about it: "Yeah...a lot of them, really."

They had no trouble entering the castle - what few guards had stayed behind were laid out on the ground, trails of blood pooling out of gaping holes in the breastplates of their armor. "He knows our castle well, he might already be to the daimyo," Massu commented between breaths. "This way."

"This guy," Yasu asked, following behind. "It's the same one? The shinobi that hurt your arm?"

"Yes," Massu answered. He skidded to a halt in the hallway, backtracking and going down an adjacent hall where a discarded pink kimono was on the floor. "He's going the wrong way," he commented, confused.

"He beat you last time, right?" Ryo asked, still trying to clutch onto the wakizashi with one hand and hold on to Yasu's shirt with the other.

"Not really," he said, stubbornly. "I couldn't kill him - we were friends. We grew up together. Why would he have come down this way?"

The door in front of them started to move and Massu awkwardly pulled out his sword as fast as he could, ready to strike, until he saw who it was. "Sir?"

The daimyo stood before him, blinking. "Masuda, what are you doing here? Isn't there a fire in the city?"

Something didn't feel right to Yasu. He could barely hear Massu explaining the situation, instead focusing on the heat in his chest. He pulled Ryo's hand off of his shirt, thinking that maybe he had just been too close for too long, that maybe his partner was bleeding over.

"Ah, Yasu," Ryo said, once his hand was free, completely disoriented. He stepped forward looking for something else to grab onto, accidentally walking straight into the other and knocking him forward into the daimyo and the samurai. "Sorry!" he immediately yelled - but his attention was cut short at the high pitched whine of something flying by.

"Ow!" Yasu shouted, reaching back to pull a dart out of his shoulder, yanking it quickly and pushing up against the wall to stem the bleeding.

"He's here." Massu shoved the daimyo back into the room and pulled the door to. "You're in the rafters? Go ahead and come out."

After a moment, they heard a light thud only a few feet away. Massu positioned his sword blade up, parallel to the floor. Had his other arm worked, it would have been under to guide a strike.

"I didn't expect to leave without a fight, really," the voice came. Soon, his face appeared in the light of the lamps in the hallway - a handsome young man, almost Massu's age. He was dressed in the traditional black uniform, a strap around his thigh containing bloodied tools of his trade.

"You wouldn't want it that way, anyway," Massu replied, with a voice appropriate for the greeting of an old friend. "Is this about revenge?"

"Not really," the other answered. "More about the economy."

"What?" Ryo groaned.

"Discredit the samurai," he said.

"And the daimyo have incentive to retain more shinobi," Massu concluded.

"Job security."

"It's a smart idea actually," Massu replied.

Yasu and Ryo both stiffened next to him at the answer - he may have had a point, but neither liked the idea that the only thing between them and the assassin's weapon was a man who agreed with the basic effectiveness of killing people in power in order to shame another class out of a hiring privilege.

"But then," Massu continued, "I'd be out of a job."

"That shouldn't be an issue," the other replied. "I went for your arm last time so they'd keep you out of service."

Massu changed his stance, lowering his sword and his guard. "I like my job."

"I'm sorry." The shinobi turned his arm slightly and light shone off of a short blade - a kodachi, similar to the wakizashi Massu had given Ryo - that he had tucked back against his arm, the hilt hidden in his hand. "But things need to change. I tried to keep you out of it."

"I know."

Yasu let go of his shoulder to grab Ryo. "I think we should go."

"Right."

"I don't think so," the shinobi said. He immediately ran toward Massu with his right arm raised, the short blade still tucked and poised to slash across the body as soon as he punched up with it.

Massu quickly, and easily, raised his sword to meet him, the two clashing together - his earlier open stance a charade.

But the tactic didn't work - the shinobi wasn't interested in trying to cut Massu down. Instead, he had planned on the counter and used it to throw his weight into him - he planted his left foot and shoved the samurai off balance. Then, pushing off of the falling Massu, he turned and shifted his weight to the right, grabbing Ryo in the process with enough momentum to throw him to the ground. He bore down on him, straddling his waist and tilted the blade in his hand in order to stab Ryo in the back. Before he could, Yasu tackled him and the two slid into the wall.

Ryo pushed up onto his knees as quickly as he could, with the sting of the hard ground still aching in his jaw from the impact. He had dropped the wakizashi and, given the way he had landed, thought it had to be somewhere close. He started shaking his body clumsily as he patted around the floor for the sword - one of the two tactics had to work. If they couldn't exit quickly enough, the blade was their only hope.

Yasu had worked the kodachi away from the shinobi by pounding his fist into the ground, but the other countered by rolling away from Yasu while he was putting all of his force into freeing the weapon. The blade landed by his side and Yasu reached to grab it - the shinobi took advantage, springing up and kicking Yasu in the shoulder, right where the dart had hit. Yasu couldn't help but instinctively grab and cringe.

While his attention was on Yasu, the attacker barely had enough time to roll away from Massu's charge, kicking the kodachi blade away in the process. He didn't have anything else to parry with and had to rely on dexterity alone to avoid Massu's sword. For a moment the two continued - one striking, the other avoiding - like well choreographed moves from skilled dancers.

"Got it!" Ryo yelled, picking up the wakizashi and throwing off the sheath.

Massu glanced to the side at the exclamation and the shinobi saw the opening immediately. He ducked inside of Massu's reach and grabbed his arm, by the wrist and elbow, and threw Massu over his shoulder and into the wall. He picked up Massu's sword, turned it over his wrist, and headed toward his body to finish the job.

Yasu crashed into him and scrambled to put him into a hold, his arms effectively pinning the attacker's in place, outstretched. "Ryo, throw it!"

Ryo turned his head in the direction of Yasu's voice and complied, throwing it underhanded in hopes that it would reach someone without striking them.

Massu was up on his knees and dove, catching it in his hand on the blade and cutting deeply into his palm. He gritted his teeth and, through the pain, reached the attacker and stabbed him in the chest.

The shinobi dropped the katana and Yasu loosened his grip, letting him fall to his knees in front of Massu. Before Yasu could think, he ran to Ryo, picking him up and pulling him behind Massu, out of the way.

Massu picked his sword up off of the floor. He held it clumsily in his injured hand as he tried to regain his breath. He raised it to the shinobi's neck.

"Do it," the other said, holding his chest, blood trickling out of the side of his mouth. "You've got to finish it."

Ryo could hear the ragged breath of everyone there, smell the pools of blood and sweat. His heart was pumping too fast, a feeling he normally didn't mind. And over the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears, he heard Massu's sword cut through the air. A spray of blood splattered against his face, followed by a heavy, sickly thud. Ryo immediately spat and tried to rub his face clean, only smearing it more onto his cheek in the process.

Massu sighed and sheathed his sword - finally allowing the pain of his hand to reflect on his face.

Yasu coughed for air. "Unfinished business," he said quietly. "He was your friend."

"Yeah," Massu said, looking at the decapitated body with woeful eyes. "He was."

"Masuda, Masuda!" the daimyo said, pulling open the door and sticking his head out.

"Sir." Massu immediately switched gears, putting his personal sorrow aside to fulfill his duties, kneeling and bowing at his lord.

"What's going on?"

"The fire was a distraction, sir."

The daimyo looked over him at the crumpled body on the floor...and the head a few feet away, the two connected only by a splatter trail of blood from the final blow. "I see."

"Sir?" Massu added, still bent and staring at the ground. "I don't think this is the end of the attacks." He raised his head to look his master in the face. "It's not like him to have such a short-sighted plan. And I don't think he was acting alone. I think this was only the beginning."

"You knew him?" the daimyo asked. "What was his family name?"

Massu paused. "He was known as The Hand, sir."

Ryo snorted softly, partially out of honest skepticism and partially trying to cover that he was still out of breath from the attack. "The Hand?"

"That's how he was known here."

"What was his real name?" the daimyo continued.

Massu lowered his forehead to the ground, in apology, a pained smile on his face. "I can't say."

The daimyo nodded, somewhat displeased. "Your loyalty presents itself again."

Yasu grunted, putting a hand to his shoulder.

"That needs attention," Massu started.

Yasu waved his other hand and smiled through the pain. "That's okay, I know someone."

"We should go," Ryo said. "We should have left an hour ago."

Massu nodded in response, clapping a hand on Ryo's back. "Thank you, it was lucky that you wanted to help me."

Ryo smiled uncomfortably - he took a deep breath and started to rock his body back and forth.

"About that - don't forget," Yasu started.

"That Zatoichi's afraid of water, I won't," Massu said. He laughed, but no one laughed with him. "...this world is an illusion, I remember."

Yasu smiled at him again and the pain really started to sink in. The dart had hit at the top of his shoulder, close to the bone. He cringed, exhaling deeply as he tried to focus on something besides the feeling - but the pain increased instead. He crouched down, holding his shoulder and burying his face into his arm. When he raised his head, he was back in the hospital room, holding onto Ryo and looking at Ohkura with a blank expression.

He started blinking and Ohkura read the gesture. "You're back," the nurse commented.

Yasu immediately dropped Ryo's arm and forgot all about his shoulder, turning his attention to his superior on the other side of the bed.

"Well?" Domoto asked.

Yasu nodded. "He might recover. He's going to try, anyway."

"Good to hear," Domoto commented, picking up his jacket and the patient file from the chair. He gave a small wave, indicating that Ohkura needed to clean up. It was time to go home.

Ryo stumbled back from the bed, rubbing his eyes - and then the side of his face to wipe away the traces of the blood - still trying to deal with the sudden invasion of hospital lights. "Yasu."

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Yasu asked. He stood beside the bed, looking over it with a sense of satisfaction and a dutiful smile that echoed the samurai's. "It was good, right? I think we really helped Masuda."

"Sure, look, Yasu-"

Yasu suddenly grabbed Ryo's shirt, pulling him over. "He just moved."

"What?" Ohkura asked.

"He just moved his hand - the finger."

"They do that sometimes," Ryo answered. "Yasu, something weird happened-"

"No, it wasn't a twitch," Yasu insisted. "He did it when I said his name."

"He wouldn't be responsive so soon," Domoto commented, stopping halfway out the door. "Would he?"

Ohkura shrugged. "You can regain cognizance at any time, so..."

Domoto stared at him for a moment. "Keep an eye on it," he finally said, walking out.

Yasu laughed, shaking Ryo. "I think we did it - I think we figured it out!"

"Yasu..."

"I know it's just movement, but I think this is really it, Ryo - I think that was a response."

Yasu stayed behind with Ohkura; within an hour, he saw Masuda's finger twitch again, twice, at the sound of his name. He would have stayed all night if Ohkura hadn't reminded him that the normal hospital staff would be in to check his status soon. Outside in the hallway, he found Ryo waiting against the wall. "Oh, I thought you left already."

"No," Ryo answered softly. He quickly changed his expression. "Zatoichi, the blind swordsman?!"

"It was on at the bar last week," he replied, starting down the hall. "What was it that you were trying to say earlier?"

Ryo opened his mouth to answer, but couldn't force himself to say it. "Nothing. How's your shoulder?"

Yasu rubbed it. "To be honest? A little numb."

  


~

End of Part 2  



	3. While You Were Sleeping

  
Ryo walked in and looked around. "Where's Yasu?"

Domoto didn't bother to look up from the notebook he was writing in. "With the case from last week."

"Masuda?"

Ohkura was raising the bed, putting the patient into a more upright position to give Ryo better access. "Tuesday the hospital staff noticed he was tracking with his eyes."

"You're joking," Ryo replied. "He came back?"

"On his way there, possibly," Ohkura answered. "Seemed responsive to pain, too."

Ryo couldn't help but smile, but it quickly faded. It was a heartening thing to hear, but he understood the reality - that Masuda might not do more than move his finger and his eyes for years, if ever. "You know people at that hospital?"

Ohkura glanced over to his side where their supervisor sat, but didn't say a word.

Domoto could feel their eyes on him. He continued to scribble. "Was Masuda his name? I wouldn't know."

The door opened and Yasu came in, holding a file. "Oh, Ryo." He stopped to pull something out of his bag. "Here."

Ryo caught a package of convenience store onigiri and his face instantly brightened. "Thanks!"

"You're so easy," Ohkura remarked.

"I brought some for you, too," Yasu said, tossing him one.

"Really? Thanks, Yasuda!"

Ryo had half of it in his mouth already. "What's with the file?" he asked, voice garbled with food. He stopped mid-chew to look somewhat disapprovingly at the rice ball in his hand.

"What's the matter?" Yasu asked.

"It needs more rice," he answered. It didn't stop him from stuffing the rest into his mouth. "The file?"

"Ah," Yasu said, taking his bag off of his shoulder. "I asked if I could pick the next patient."

"The department didn't care?" Ryo asked cautiously, looking over at Domoto again.

He continued to scribble away. "I don't care what you do."

Ryo momentarily considered throwing the wrapper in his hand at Domoto's head to force him to look up and acknowledge them, but the thought of accidentally going into his mind kept his hand at bay. He had seen what Domoto doodled on the margins of the paperwork. He had no desire to ever go to that world.

"I think we've got it now," Yasu said. "Before, if we found someone we'd just try to get around to the truth and hope they'd understand and work it out, but how many people actually recovered?"

"Some. And more might, eventually, maybe. One day."

"Right? But Masuda responded immediately. I think that's the key - I think the mind doesn't know what to do when you're unaware of your surroundings. Maybe helping them in the mindscape helps them overcome the stumbling block to coming back."

"But that doesn't solve the underlying problem," Ohkura interjected.

"We're not trying to cure them," Yasu said. "We're just trying to make them cognizant again."

Ryo chewed on his lip. "I don't know, Yasu."

"We can find out," he said, holding up the file. "I went through the database of patients so we could try. This one, he's been in a persistent vegetative state for almost two years from an alcohol overdose - no visits in the past six months."

"That's," Ryo scoffed, "he's pretty much a lost cause."

"Exactly," Yasu replied with a smile. "If it works, it works, and if it doesn't, he can be removed from the system and our employers are happy. He's perfect."

Ryo ran his fingers through his hair, shaking it out. "Okay."

"Oh, I thought I was going to have to bribe you," Yasu answered. "Ohkura, do you want more?"

"Sure!"

"Hey, wait a minute," Ryo started.

"Looks like we have a crier this time," Domoto interrupted. When everyone turned to look at him, he pointed at the patient with his pen and nodded solemnly before returning to the pad.

"He does that a lot, apparently," Yasu added. "Ready?"

"I guess so," Ryo said, pushing up his sleeves.

Within minutes, they were inside the new mindscape. Yasu opened his eyes to a vast stretch of brown burnt nothingness and flickering images skewed by the heat in the air.

"It's hot," Ryo announced. "Where are we?"

"The desert."

"Maybe we should try this experiment with the next patient."

Yasu turned around and saw that they were actually on the edge of an old town. "Oh," he said, pushing Ryo that way. "Let's go."

"It smells like shit."

"Yeah," Yasu said, stopping him and pulling him to the left before he stepped in the source of the smell. "There are horses around."

"Oh," Ryo replied. "That kind of desert."

"There's a saloon - let's see if anyone in there's seen him."

Yasu pushed aside one of the small flapping doors, leading Ryo into a dark, empty bar. The streets hadn't been crowded by any means, but he had seen at least a few people outside on the walkways. There wasn't anyone inside.

Save a girl sitting at the end of the bar, leaning back on it with her elbow while she aimlessly bounced her right leg down the side of the stool. The left sleeve of her dress was pushed off of her shoulder and she had a cigar in her hand, one she'd obviously been smoking. Her eyes drifted over to the strangers and she jumped off the stool in a panic, shoving the cigar into the bar top and pulling up her sleeve. She waved the smoke away from her face. "What can I do you for?"

"We're looking for someone," Yasu answered.

"Information's a one drink minimum," she replied.

"Sounds good to me," Ryo cheered.

She grabbed two shotglasses from behind the bar and filled one, sliding it down to where Yasu was at the other end. He took Ryo's hand and put it around the glass and watched as Ryo tentatively touched the sides to judge size and then carefully put it to his bottom lip before smirking and tossing it back.

He immediately dropped the shotglass, coughing. "Augh!" he yelled, licking his wrist furiously to get the taste out of his mouth. "Shit- fu- I forgot!"

"Oh yeah," Yasu replied. "I forgot that was more sensitive in here too." He held up a hand to halt the girl before she poured the second and instead left Ryo to stomp and flail by himself. "That's one."

"You didn't pay for it."

"Did you say anything about paying?" he asked, an expressionless look on his face. Yasu had a way of turning up his cute factor to get what he wanted, but his most successful tool was to simply state things in a matter-of-fact tone and tip his head back just enough to look down his nose at someone, slightly, even at his height. Something about the seriousness of the tone and expression from such an outrageous looking figure usually made people comply. "One drink minimum," he repeated. "That was one drink." He looked over at the dying cigar she had tried to hide behind the bottle of whiskey.

She caught his glance. "It's not like he needs them anymore." She exhaled heavily. "Fine, who are you looking for?"

Instantly he changed, a wide friendly smile and chipper tone breaking out. "Have you heard of anyone named Yokoyama?"

"Can't say as I have," she answered. "You're better off asking Ol' Diamondback. He'd know."

"Who's that?"

"The Sheriff," she answered, tipping her head to the left before putting away the other glass and putting the stubbed out cigar back in her mouth. "You better hurry - he's riding out soon."

"Thanks," he said, waving. He waited until Ryo stopped pounding his fist on the bar before grabbing his sleeve again.

"Can't - I need water first," he choked out.

The girl laughed, opening up a matchbook. "Water? You know you're in a desert, right?"

Yasu pulled him away and out of the saloon. He jogged slowly down the walkway looking at the signs as he went until he found one with the word "Sheriff" burned in large letters deep onto the board.

In front, a man, not too much older than they were, was saddling his horse. He had on a brown poncho with a large lozenge pattern, and a boss of the plains hat - a thin line of a moustache on his lip. "You boys looking for something?"

"Ol' Diamondback," Yasu answered.

The man smiled, very softly. "That's me." He raised his arm and pulled the poncho up to show a star badge on his shirt - and a big iron on his hip. When he noticed Yasu looking at the gun, he let go of the cloth and turned back to his horse. "What'dya need?"

"I thought you'd be older. Have you seen anyone named Yokoyama?"

The Sheriff paused, resting his hand on the horn of the saddle. "Not that I know of. Sorry I couldn't help you." With the saddle secure, he stood on the stirrup and swung a leg over, getting up on his horse. "You're better off moving on, now."

"Why's that?" Ryo asked.

"Folks around here aren't too happy with strangers after what the Man in Black did," he explained. "They might think you're in league with him."

"Do you think we are?" Yasu asked.

The Sheriff paused. "Without guns and half blind? I don't think it matters. Speaking of which, if you'll excuse me, I've got a posse to lead."

"To find the Man in Black?" Yasu asked. "Let us go with you."

"Eh?!" Ryo blurted out beside him.

"That might be the guy we're looking for," Yasu explained.

"He owe you money or something?" the Sheriff asked.

"Something like that, yeah."

"Fine. Deputy's taken ill, you can use his horse there."

"Thanks," Yasu answered. He walked to the other tied horse and picked up the saddle, inspecting it, trying to decide which direction it went.

"Hang on," the Sheriff said gently, dismounting. "We're in kind of a hurry, so..."

Yasu led Ryo to the horse, positioning him beside the hind leg. Ryo didn't need to be that close to smell the animal and having his head near such large muscle made him nervous. He tried to reach up to stroke it, to soothe himself more than it, and ended up bumping it instead - where, he wasn't sure.

Once Yasu was in the saddle, with a very brief handling lesson, he grabbed Ryo's outstretched hand and pulled while the Sheriff pushed. After some flailing and bumping, Ryo ended up clinging to Yasu's back, sliding into the last half of the saddle and burying his bright red face into his own arm.

"Getting down's gonna be worse," the Sheriff commented.

He rounded up the rest of his crew - the sun was getting lower in the sky and they'd only have a few more hours of daylight. With a wave, they moved out and rode to the edge of the settlement, where the last ranch was.

"What did this guy do?" Ryo asked, having to yell over the hoofbeats.

"Shot the bartender," the Sheriff said. He motioned for everyone to slow to a trot around the ranch. "Came into town a couple of weeks ago and went to the saloon every day to talk to Takizawa. Four days ago folks saw him walk in, heard a shot and then saw him run out and Takizawa was on the floor with a hole in his head. Strangest thing, too. All that time in the bar and apparently he never drank once - kept ordering shots and would just stare at them. No guts, I guess."

Ryo squeezed Yasu's waist at the mention of alcohol. "Yeah," Yasu replied. He was thinking the same thing.

"What's that?" Ryo suddenly said. He was sniffing the air, making a face. "Is that him?" he asked, turning in the saddle to his right.

The Sheriff chuckled quietly. "Not quite."

"What?"

"It's just a dog, Ryo," Yasu explained. "Checking out the noise."

"It's a black dog," the Sheriff offered. "At least you got the color right?"

They came to a halt at the end of the fencing and fanned out. "Seems someone's been stealing things off the ranch around sunset," he told them. He pointed for half of the crew to go one way and the rest to the other, leading his horse up the middle.

"Sheriff?" Yasu asked.

"It's okay," he smiled. "I don't mind being alone. You two stay put."

"Yasu," Ryo said, leaning his head on his shoulder. "What's here?"

"A bunch of enclosures," he answered. "A couple of buildings."

"Go to one of those. If he's been hiding for four days, he'll be hanging out where there's food."

Yasu led the horse closer to the first building. "Hey, there are chickens here!"

"Chickens are food, Yasu."

"They're cute," he answered.

"Is there anything else?" Ryo asked. "They're really noisy."

He pulled on the reins to make the horse turn and circle the building - on the other side they found a man crouched as low as he could, holding a chicken in front of his face. The chicken squawked and flapped, beat his hands with its wings until he had to let go with a chorus of "Ow!"s. He looked up at them with his thick lips parted in confusion before quickly putting his hands up over his face and tucking himself further into a ball.

"Yokoyama?" Yasu asked.

"No?" he answered. "No Yokoyama here, just...a bush?"

"This place is surrounded," Ryo hissed.

"We've got to get you out of here."

"You're not taking me to jail?" Yokoyama asked, raising his head.

"No!"

"Then let's go," he answered, jumping up. Yasu took his foot out of the stirrup momentarily so Yokoyama could boost himself up. The fugitive pulled on Ryo to get onto the back of the horse and yelled, "Go, just start riding out to the desert."

Yasu commanded the horse to start running - he held the reins tightly in his hands to stay in control. Ryo held onto him just the same. And, much to Ryo's dismay, Yokoyama followed suit.

The Sheriff had just joined some of his men at the last pasture when they blew past. One of the cowboys was quick to draw, shot twice before the Sheriff held up his hand. "Not around the cows," he said. "There's a better way."

At each shot, all three on the horse ducked and bunched up together. "They're not following," Yasu finally yelled.

"Keep going," Yokoyama yelled back. "Just keep going." After fifteen minutes of pure speed, he shouted, "Stop! Stop!"

Yasu pulled on the reins until the horse finally slowed down enough for Yokoyama to slide off of the back. He landed with a thud and took a second to dust off his clothes - mostly black, making his nickname at least apt. "Where are we?" Yokoyama mumbled.

"What?" Ryo asked.

"Um," Yokoyama said. "Desert all looks the same."

"Where are we supposed to be?" Ryo asked.

"Relax, Dokkun, I know where we're going - it's that formation over there, head that way," he answered, leading the way on foot.

"What did you just-"

"Yeah, see?" Yokoyama yelled back.

"Yasu," Ryo asked quietly. "What did he just call me?"

"I didn't catch it - maybe it was some cowboy term?"

"Yeah...maybe."

"See?" Yokoyama said as they caught up. Part of the rock formation had been weathered away at the base, creating an overhang that acted as a make-shift cave. There were a few items scattered around the remains of a small fire pit, including a rifle. "I found it a few days ago," he explained.

Yasu halted the horse and Ryo took a deep breath before he stuck his foot out, looking for the stirrup. When he found it, he stood, swinging his leg around - but he couldn't find the ground. He made the decision to just jump - and got caught in the stirrup, landing on his butt and hitting his head on the ground before he could pull his leg free.

"Smooth," Yokoyama commented.

"Let's see you do it blind," Ryo shot back.

"You're blind?" Ryo heard him scuffle up next to him and crouch down. "When did that happen?"

"Recently."

"Really? That's a shame, I always thought you-"

Yokoyama was interrupted by Yasu calling out, "Hyah!" as he slapped the horse on the hip and sent it back toward the town.

"What'dya do that for?"

"There's no water out here," Yasu answered. "It's not fair to keep it when it could go back to its owner and I think we've done enough damage riding it out here."

"What if we need it?" Yokoyama asked. "It's not hard to find this place, what if they come after us?"

"Then we're leaving," Ryo said, sitting up.

"We'll figure it out then," Yasu replied, helping Ryo off of the ground.

Yokoyama took a sudden step away from them, backing up. "You were with the Sheriff weren't you?"

"We're not here to take you in," Yasu assured him.

Yokoyama didn't look convinced...until he looked over at Ryo. He relaxed his shoulders and then started toward the fire pit. "Yeah, Dokkun squirms when he lies so."

"What the fuck," Ryo answered. "I do not! And why do you ke-"

"Your brain's frying from the heat," Yokoyama said. "You better get into the shade and cool off - the sun won't set for another hour."

They retreated to the overhang and sat up against the coolness of the overcast rock. Yokoyama took off his boots, belt and vest and started fanning himself. "I didn't get any of the chickens," he pouted.

"Why are you out here?" Yasu asked.

"I'm looking for my brothers," he answered. "Were you in the war?"

Ryo shrugged and Yasu shook his head. "What war?"

Yokoyama scoffed. " _The_ war. You were already out this way or something?" He didn't stop for an answer. "I had to go but I wasn't about to let them, so they headed out to stay with relatives." He scooted down until his head was against the rock and he looked up at the colors of the overhang. "Trained for two months and then the first battle they sent us to, my entire troop was wiped out before they could really do anything. I got scared when it started - the guy marching next to me was shot and fell over and I didn't move. I just waited until it was night. No one noticed I wasn't dead, so when it was over, I ran." He suddenly felt embarrassed at being so honest and turned away from them. "I would have done more damage than good anyway, I was helping them by leaving."

"You escaped to your family?" Yasu asked.

"No!" Yokoyama answered, loudly. "That's the thing! By the time I got there, they had left! Some guy came into town telling them they could make a fortune out west and they went with him! That was over a year ago."

Yasu looked over at Ryo, a completely useless gesture as the other was staring bleary-eyed out at his blank vision of the desert.

"A few towns over they said they saw them come this way," Yokoyama continued. "Nothing." He sighed, thudding his head back on the rock and grabbing it immediately in pain.

"Why are you out here?" Ryo finally spoke up.

"You lost your hearing too?" Yokoyama asked.

"Out here," Ryo repeated. "Why'd you shoot the bartender?"

"I didn't!" Yokoyama said, sitting up straight. "I didn't shoot him - I didn't!"

"The Sheriff thinks you did."

"I didn't," Yokoyama protested. "Somebody told me Takizawa knew something about it, about a trail of young guys passing through this town all the time, so I tried to talk to him!"

"And then you shot him," Ryo insisted.

"I didn't!"

"He was shot, right?"

Yokoyama paused. "Yeah, but... He was showing me his new gun, okay? Won it gambling or something, I don't know - he handed it over and I was looking at it when..."

"When?" Yasu prompted.

"Mm, nothing," Yokoyama mumbled through a half-pout.

"What did you do?" Ryo asked. "Accidentally pull the trigger?"

"More like...I dropped it."

Ryo couldn't help but laugh.

"It's not my fault! He tossed it at me! It hit the bar and went off - straight through the head! What was I supposed to do? Tell people he really shot himself and I just happened to be around? People don't trust deserters, you know!"

"You are such a liar!" Ryo replied, still snickering.

"There's a scorpion on your shoulder."

Ryo jumped up and started brushing at his shoulder in a panic. "Yasu, get it off! Get it off!"

"There's nothing there," Yasu replied.

"That's not funny!"

Yokoyama nodded, looking at the sky. "They'll be all over us if we don't get a fire started before the sun goes down." He looked straight at Ryo. "Too bad I don't have any firewood. Oh well, good night!"

"Eh?!"

"There's still some wood in the pit," Yasu told him.

"You're no fun," Yokoyama commented.

"I owe him," he answered, watching Ryo pat down all of his clothing. "He hasn't left yet."

Yokoyama got the fire started and night fell. They stayed close to the rock face, listening to the pops and cracks of the fire amongst the sounds of nocturnal animals. "I could try to kill something?" he offered, without confidence.

"That's okay," Ryo answered.

Yokoyama sighed. "I really should have held onto that chicken. Better get some sleep."

Ryo softly snorted. "We don't really sleep."

"I think I had a bottle of something here a couple of days ago," Yokoyama offered. "That usually helps, right?"

Ryo furrowed his eyebrows.

"You have to sleep first!" he continued, switching tones instantaneously. "How am I supposed to fall asleep with strangers! Maybe you're waiting for me to doze off and then you'll take my rifle or turn me in or, or...do things while I'm vulnerable!"

"We'll go to sleep first," Yasu promised. "You're tired, right?"

"Not really," Ryo commented.

"Of course you are," Yokoyama snorted. "You were up all last night, weren't you, Dokkun?"

Ryo pushed himself up, pointing a finger in Yokoyama's general direction. "Look, how do you kn-"

"I can tell you're tired," Yasu interrupted.

"Fine," Ryo admitted, lying back down.

"Just let the fire burn itself out," Yokoyama commented, slouching down and turning his back to them.

After some time of silence, Ryo quietly called, "Yasu?"

"Yeah?" he whispered back.

He hesitated. "What kind of dreams do you have in someone else's head?"

"I don't know," Yasu answered. "Tell me in the morning."

"Something's not right."

"Do you want to leave?"

"Yes."

"Oh," Yasu answered. "Okay, we can go then."

"Yasu?"

"Yeah?"

"G'night."

Ten minutes later, Yasu could tell that he had fallen asleep - both by the sound of his breathing and the cooling of heat within his own chest. He always felt a little cold the minute Ryo left. He turned to the other side and saw that Yokoyama was watching him, smiling.

"He hasn't changed much, has he?" he asked.

Yasu mulled it over. "I don't know, I think he's getting better. What's the plan for tomorrow?"

"Continue west," he said. "Keep going until I find something."

"We'll find them," Yasu said. He laughed quietly. "I really should have kept the horse. It's hard on Ryo, not being able to see."

"It's okay," Yokoyama replied. "Dokkun likes having you within arm's reach."

He smiled, the firelight flickering on his face. "I didn't know that."

In the morning, Yasu opened his eyes to a good look down the barrel of a gun and a click. Ol' Diamondback stood over him, the gun pressed down to his nose. The Sheriff put his finger to his mouth to indicate silence and Yasu nodded slightly in response.

On his left, he could see the posse standing guard - three men a couple of feet away from Ryo, who was still fast asleep, all armed. On his right, one of the men stood over Yokoyama with his gun pointed just like the Sheriff. Yokoyama was wide awake and kept his eyes on the barrel in front of his face.

"Horses leave tracks, you know?" the Sheriff said, quietly.

At that moment, Ryo yawned loudly, stretching out and rolling - the three men by him all lowered their guns even though Ryo obviously had no intention of getting up. He yawned loudly again, making as much noise as possible - everyone turned their head at the sound.

Except Yokoyama. The moment the man on him lost focus, he pushed the gun away and kicked the guy off. He rolled over to his right, sprang up, grabbed his rifle and dove behind a rock.

"Get to cover!" the Sheriff commanded. His men scrambled.

Ryo shot up. "What's- Yasu?"

"Thank god you're up now." But before Yasu could rush to his partner, a shot rang out. He turned to see the man who had been guarding Yokoyama put a hand to his chest to feel blood seeping through his shirt. He fell to his knees, dropping his gun, and then collapsed - dead.

"Get his gun, quick!" Yokoyama yelled from behind the rock. Yasu ran to grab Ryo and pulled him behind the formation where he was. "I said get the gun!" he yelled at him.

The Sheriff motioned for half of the men to go around the far side. "Give up, we know you shot Takizawa."

"I didn't!" Yokoyama yelled back.

"We've got a witness," the Sheriff continued. "I heard the Madam's son was upstairs the whole time, he saw everything."

Yasu looked at Yokoyama. "Is that true?"

"I-"

The Sheriff's men sprung on both sides, aiming their guns and ready to shoot. Yokoyama dropped the rifle and put up his hands. "You're under arrest," the Sheriff said. "And we have a gallows waiting."

"But that's hearsay," he started. "Just because some kid said-"

"It doesn't matter what the kid said," the Sheriff answered. "You just killed a lawman in front of my own eyes. Get up. You too."

"What?" Ryo asked. "We didn't do anything!"

"I don't know if you meant to or not, but you helped a wanted criminal escape and were accessory to a murder," he said. "You'll be convicted as part of his posse. Now get up."

They picked them up, one by one, guns still pointed at their heads. One of the men went to each, tying their hands together with pieces of rope.

"Is this really necessary?" Yokoyama asked.

"I don't think you're really in a position to ask."

"I'm just saying - all I have to do is push one of them in the way and make a run for it," he replied. "So there's no point in tying my hands."

The Sheriff sighed, his eyes weary at the thought, and signaled one of the men over, whispering something and pointing. "You're right."

Yokoyama held his hands out to have them released. Instead, the Sheriff's man brought a longer rope over and tied one end around Ryo's neck; he then tied the same piece around Yasu and Yokoyama's necks respectively, stringing them together, and gave the other end to the Sheriff to loop through the stirrup of his saddle. "There," he said. "If one of you runs, you'll choke the other two."

"Thanks," Ryo muttered.

"That...that didn't work out like I thought it would," Yokoyama replied.

"Just stop talking." He decided it was time to take matters into his own hands - after a couple of movements to start the exit, Yasu was bumping into him and choking out for him to stop.

"See?" The Sheriff got up on his horse and motioned the crew to move out - most could ride ahead, a few stayed back with their sights ready. He made sure the prisoners weren't boxed in and could move at a slow pace - he wasn't interested in needless caution. After all, they were free to choose the speed of their own demise. "You make things so much harder on yourself, you know that?"

The sun was already out and blazing and the three marched silently behind the Sheriff's horse until Yokoyama couldn't take it anymore. "Why'd they call you Ol' Diamondback anyway? The poncho, right?"

The Sheriff didn't answer, coughing quietly and looking away from them.

"It's the poncho."

"Maybe it's because he's an old soul," Yasu offered.

Yokoyama considered it. "Definitely the poncho."

"We'll be in town pretty soon," the Sheriff interrupted. "You might want to consider any messages you'd like to leave for loved ones."

"I don't have to," Yokoyama replied, quickly. "If you find my brothers, wherever they are, whatever they're doing - tell them to go home."

Within an hour, they were in town and the townspeople were out and ready to greet them. The streets were lined leading up to a gallows in the middle of the square and the town jeered them all the way there. The Sheriff got off his horse and untied the rope from his stirrup with a look on his face. "This isn't my preferred method of dealing with things," he said.

"Then don't do it?" Yokoyama suggested.

"Couldn't you have asked that before you shot and killed two men?" he sighed.

He led them up the stairs of the platform and the crowd closed in. He took the rope off of all three but kept their hands bound. One of the men stood on the last step, his gun ready, just in case Yasu and Ryo decided to take advantage of the situation; as it was, the only place they had to run to was off the stage into the unfriendly crowd. The Sheriff led Yokoyama over, standing him over the trapdoor, and pulled the noose down to slip over his neck.

"Sheriff, please," Yasu started, stepping forward.

"Yasu, we have to go, now," Ryo said.

"Sheriff, surely there's something else, wouldn't prison be punishment enough?"

"Yasu!"

"We can't leave, Ryo," he replied. "They're going to kill him - what happens when they kill him? He might be gone forever."

"What happens when they kill us," Ryo shot back. "How's your shoulder feel?"

"You don't know that was related. We can't leave now, we haven't eve-"

"Yasu," Ryo interrupted.

"You want to leave him lik-"

"Yasu!" Ryo said again. He was staring ahead into the crowd with focus, something Yasu had never seen before, his mouth hanging open. "There he is."

"What?" Yasu said, turning to the crowd.

In the back stood a young man, tall and with short hair. He was pale with thick lips and wore a light set of clothes to reflect away the punishing sun. He watched in silence, his eyes wide and focused on the length of the noose. In the back of the crowd stood none other than Yokoyama.

"You...you can see that?" Yasu asked.

Yokoyama saw him as well and started yelling, screaming at the top of his lungs - with so much force that he spat every syllable. "You!" he yelled. "You! You!" He pulled at the noose, like a rabid dog on a chain - the only thing that kept him from jumping off of the stage and going straight for the other man. "You!"

The Sheriff grabbed him and pushed him back. "Hey, hey!" he shouted. "It's not his fault he saw you shoot Takizawa!"

"You!"

The commotion made the crowd uneasy - they pushed forward, making the Sheriff's men close in on the stage, their fingers dangerously close to the triggers to take control of the situation at a moment's notice.

"Sheriff!" Yasu started. "Can't you see? That's him."

With no answer, Yasu moved to charge toward the pair, drawing the attention of the guard and his aim. Ryo raised his bound hands and threw them over and around Yasu to pull him back as best he could - he ended up with an awkward hold, unable to completely maneuver around his moving shoulders.

"That's Yokoyama too!" Yasu yelled.

The Sheriff looked to his other side, where a priest was waiting, having been called earlier. "I think we better hurry up," he said. The priest nodded and started his prayers, the calls of mercy upon Yokoyama's soul - barely audible next to the stream of "You!"s coming from the fugitive's mouth.

"Ryo, let go, that's Yokoyama! That's Yokoyama!" Yasu continued to shout. "Sheriff? Sheriff! How could he have seen himself? It doesn't make sense, you have to listen to me!"

Ryo struggled to hang on - Yasu matched him completely in athleticism and determination. He ended up falling back, slamming onto the wood of the stage, just to take Yasu down. "Yasu? Yasu? Fuck it, I can't see again - we have to go, Yasu!"

"Ryo stop it! Sheriff?"

The Sheriff kept his hands on Yokoyama's shoulders to hold him back as the priest continued the prayers, an unhappy look on his face, but refusing to look at Yasu's pleas.

Ryo thrashed against the stage floor. "We have to go!" It wasn't working - wasn't working fast enough. Ryo started to hit his head against the wood. The crowd kept pushing into the scaffolding - so much so that he could feel thumping on the stage below and rocks being thrown at them.

"Sheriff!" Yasu called. He was scattered in his efforts - trying to crawl his way to the center while also trying to pull Ryo's arms up and off of him but keep enough weight on Ryo to stop their exit. "Ryo we can't leave! He doesn't know - he doesn't know!"

"Yokoyama!" Ryo yelled out. "This isn't real!"

"Yo-" Yokoyama immediately stopped yelling, his face blank and lost. He turned to look at the Sheriff, blinking.

"Sheriff, please!" Yasu continued.

Yokoyama turned his head to them. "What do you mean this isn't real, Dokkun?"

"It's not real," Ryo yelled out in between hits on the ground - he was raising as much of his body off of the floor as he could and slamming it - scratching his arms and bruising muscles in hopes that it would somehow move his real body enough outside. "None of this is real! You're not actually here!"

"What are you saying?" he said, tears starting to roll down his cheek. "That I did it?"

"Look out in the crowd," Yasu said, kicking back at Ryo. "Look out in the crowd!"

"Yasu!"

Yokoyama did - or he looked out at something. "We were out celebrating," he said. "They left and I decided to stick around."

"Do something! You can't let him hang!"

The priest raised his hand to make the final motion. "In the name of the father..."

The Sheriff backed away, nodding to his men - those getting more and more anxious about the crowd and the one with his hand on the handle to the trapdoor. The guard next to Ryo and Yasu lowered his gun - there wouldn't be time to reset the gallows.

"I just kept drinking," Yokoyama continued.

"Wake up, wake up," Ryo yelled.

"And the son..."

Yasu stopped struggling, pressing his forehead into the wood and going limp to Ryo's violent attempts to get out. "Ryo, please..."

"I didn't realize how much I had."

"Wake up!" Ryo growled, beating his head on the floor.

"None of this is real," Yokoyama said quietly.

"And the holy spirit."

The trapdoor opened.

Yasu buried his face against the wood - he couldn't look - and he didn't have to when he realized what he thought was the stage was actually the back of Ryo's shirt.

"Well?" Ohkura asked.

Yasu blinked and looked around until it all snapped back into place. He pulled on Ryo's arm and shouted at him, "Go back in!"

Ryo tried to pull his arm away.

"Go back in!" Yasu demanded, pushing him at the bed.

"No!"

"We have to go back," Yasu insisted. "There's still time!"

"No," Ryo said, trying to walk away. Yasu caught him and pulled him down to the ground to make him stay.

"Yasuda," Domoto said, jumping out of his seat.

"We have to go back," Yasu said, his eyes brimming. He pushed Ryo onto his back and leaned over him, grabbing his head in his hands. "We have to go back in!"

Ryo kept his eyes shut tight. "We're not going back!"

Ohkura and Domoto both grabbed Yasu by the arms and pulled him off, dragging him away from both Ryo and Yokoyama's unconscious body. "What's going on?" Domoto demanded.

In their arms, Yasu calmed down - his face releasing the strain and adopting a more confused demeanor. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

Ryo stood up and brushed off his shirt. Before he could say anything, Ohkura ushered him out of the room. "Why do I have to leave?" Ryo barked.

"Just go," Ohkura said. Before he shut the door, he whispered, "We barely pulled him off."

Yasu exhaled heavily and sat down just the same. "Sorry," he repeated, rubbing his face.

"I think maybe you should go ahead and head home too," Domoto commented. "We'll talk tomorrow."

Yasu nodded.

That night, Ryo was on his doorstep with a case in his hand. He nodded awkwardly. "I brought beer," he said, uselessly.

Yasu let him in. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been better."

"Me too. I have champagne, if you want any."

"Champagne?"

"I like champagne," Yasu replied.

"I think you're missing the point of drinking," Ryo started. He started to chew on his lip, his brain catching up with the situation. "No thanks, I'm not really, I don't really want, here." He opened the door again and set the case outside on the ground. "Do you have anything to eat?"

"Sure," Yasu said.

They both walked into the main room and the paints were scattered around the floor, grouped by shade. Ryo looked at the new canvas while Yasu poked around in his refrigerator - it was Yokoyama at the town square. But instead of a man in black hanging on a rope, he was naked, under the scaffolding in the dirt with the noose on the ground beside him - as if it had been cut - and not a gun in sight. At least Ryo thought he was naked - maybe Yasu just hadn't gotten around to drawing the clothes on yet. Like everything else, Yokoyama's face wasn't right - there was something distorted about it, changed through Yasu's fading memories.

Yasu came behind him with a tray. "It could have happened," he commented, setting it down. "Afterward."

"He could still come back," Ryo answered. "He might be fine in there. He has a chance."

"We didn't explain it to him, we should-"

"No," Ryo interrupted. "I don't think that's a good idea. Something wasn't right there, he kept calling me Dokkun."

"So?"

"No one's called me that since middle school," Ryo explained.

"Maybe he came up with it on his own."

Ryo shook his head. "My teacher used to call me that - in middle school. Said I talked bluntly - _dokuzetsu_ , venom tongued. You know...like a snake." He paused. "That wasn't the only thing - he knew other stuff. It was weird, okay?"

Yasu shrugged. "Maybe that's how you were able to see him in the crowd," he added, sitting back at the canvas, picking up his pencil.

"No, it happened in Mas-" Ryo stopped. "It was just a fluke. Don't ask me to go back."

"I won't," Yasu answered.

"Let me see your phone," he said, grabbing it off of the desk. "I'll tell Domoto to keep him on the sustain list - sometimes it takes longer, he could be okay." Ryo found the number and quietly wrote out a message on his own phone. "He might come back."

"Yeah," Yasu agreed, sketching. "Ryo, what's it like in your mind?"

"What?"

"What's it like?"

"That's a stupid question," he answered. "I don't know."

"Did you dream anything last night?"

Ryo stopped, his thumb just lightly on the send key. "In the- you mean in the desert?" He paused. "No. You?"

"I don't remember," Yasu replied.

Ryo nodded. "There. I think Ohkura knows people who work in that hospital, he could ask for updates." He paused in thought. "Maybe it's better, anyway, you know? He can still run around in there. If he ever comes back...it won't be same. Like looking at life through a fish bowl. Maybe that Taguchi guy was right."

Yasu faced him, pity in his eyes. "It must be so lonely in there."

"Nah - he probably found his brothers. Right? They rescued him last minute and they're all together now." He turned his attention back to the phone.

And Yasu turned back to the canvas. "That's not what I meant," he said quietly.

  


~

  
End of Part 3


	4. While You Were Sleeping

  
"You pick this one out too?"

"Yeah, he did," Domoto butted in. "Doesn't matter - he's been in the system for a very long time."

"They'll be excited to hear either way, huh?" Ryo replied.

"Worst case I've ever seen - been like this for years. Metabolic, tumor - something. I don't know - his file's pretty empty. Not trauma related, anyway," he replied. "Hasn't been doing too well lately, either."

"You brought me out to Kyoto for this?"

"Let's go," Yasu said.

Ryo nodded slowly. If there ever was a patient Domoto could have signed off on without even trying, it was this guy - no telling how much longer he was going to last anyway. But Yasu had picked him for a reason - and whatever the reason was, Ryo felt like he owed him. He felt guilty about what had happened with Yokoyama, not because they had seemingly failed, although that was an issue - but because he hated saying no to Yasu. It was hard to block someone who simply wanted to help - someone who thought he could be the only help to otherwise forsaken cases. Ryo had thought about it too much in the past week. Would it really hurt just to peek back in? Maybe that was it - maybe it just took a couple of trips to lead someone back. Would it really be that much of a burden to go see Masuda and Yokoyama and all the others Yasu visited on a regular basis and just give in - not even to Yasu's nonexistent pleas, but offer to go of his own free will? As a favor? As a friend?

But Ryo's head still ached from the cuts and bruises from splintering it against solid wood. He spent four days drinking water to get rid of the thirst and sickly feeling of sun poisoning. He had seen the rope burn around his neck from marching to the gallows. This was the first time he had seen Yasu since stopping by his apartment that night. He had thought about calling or texting - and every time, something told him no. He couldn't take Yasu back in - to pretend otherwise was nothing more than a tease and to even present the possibility as an option by his presence alone was an insult.

And so, if Yasu wanted to try this Maruyama guy, Ryo didn't care how bad he was - he'd go. It was the least he could do.

"Ready?" Ryo asked.

Yasu put his hands on Ryo's arm. "Ready."

When he opened his eyes, it was pitch black. At first, he thought maybe he had somehow opened them too soon - that he wasn't quite in the mindscape yet. But they had seen this before. "Ryo?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't see anything."

"He's already gone?"

"Maybe, he'll probably slip into brain death soon."

"Wait," Ryo said, sniffing. "It stinks in here. Really bad. Like..."

Curious at the comment, Yasu stuck his arms out. One hit Ryo in the shoulder and the other grazed solid wall. "Hang on, I think we're in a room." He patted his way to the side and slid down until his hands reached something familiar. "I think there's a door."

He found the handle and opened it up to a street. It was a large city, trash on the ground and skyscrapers crumbling with decay to the clouds. There was enough wind to blow debris around. Yasu looked up, expecting a storm - but the sky was light red. The streets were empty.

"Wow," Ryo said behind him, walking in his direction.

"You can see it?"

"Not really," Ryo answered. "I can see something, though. A bunch of blurry light."

"It's a city, but no one's here," Yasu told him.

"Should make finding him easier. Wait a minute, who's that?"

"Who's what?"

Ryo turned and pointed down the left side of the street. "There's something moving over there, I can see something moving around."

Yasu strained to look at the body near the corner. It was moving - it was coming toward them. Fast. "Ryo," he said, pushing him to the door. "Get back in the building."

"Why what-"

"Get back in the building now!" Yasu shoved him in and slammed the door behind him, throwing his weight against it. "Block the door!"

"What the hell did you se-" Ryo stopped as a loud thump came on the metal door - so powerful it pushed him back. He immediately charged into it, digging his feet into the ground. "What the fuck is that?"

The door rattled, thumping back and forth with the sounds of scratching and groaning. It never let up and soon the sound amplified - the pressure at the door got worse.

"I think it was a zombie," Yasu yelled back.

"A zombie?" Ryo shouted. "A zombie?! Yasu, slap me!"

"What? Why?"

"Just do it!"

Yasu slapped with half of his power, aiming in the dark and connecting on Ryo's neck.

"Again! Do it harder!"

Yasu repeated, this time with full force and hitting him on the ear. "What's the point of this?" he yelled, struggling to keep the door closed. They were getting worse.

"Harder!"

"Fine!"

Yasu kicked up as hard as he could, hitting Ryo clean in the chest and knocking him into the metal door. He didn't wait for a second command - he kicked again and this time hit Ryo right in the jaw. He blinked and they were back in the hospital room again.

Ryo smiled and rubbed the side of his face. "Ooh, that worked." He seemed entirely too pleased with himself. "What are we supposed to do about zombies?"

"Zombies?" Ohkura asked.

"Oh good," Domoto said with a lazy smile. "You've got a horror buff."

"What are we going to do?"

"Try again," Yasu answered. "He's not brain dead yet. If we're back in the locked room and can't get out, we'll leave."

Ryo suddenly doubled over, a hand to his mouth.

"You okay?"

"The smell, in that room," Ryo started.

"Don't think about it."

"Easy for you say," Ryo grumbled, taking Maruyama's head in his hands again. The guy kind of spooked Ryo - he was staring straight at him and seemingly never blinked. It was hard to forget that those eyes were unseeing and empty.

"Oh," Yasu said, blinking. "We're outside now." He quickly looked around. "Maybe we should get off the street before they come back?" He took Ryo's hand and pulled him into an alley off to the side - it looked empty enough. "Still blurry?"

"Yeah," Ryo replied, leaning on his shoulder.

Yasu peeked around the corner. "I don't see anything. Maybe we came back in at a different part of town?"

"Maybe?" Ryo replied, rubbing his nose. "I can still smell them though."

"Maybe you're still smelling whatever was in that room?"

"That was different."

"I don't know," Yasu continued. "That looks like the building we were in, though, and there's nothing there. Maybe they got tired and left?"

"Yeah, I guess," Ryo answered.

"It was probably the harpies," a third voice said.

Yasu spun around quickly, pulling himself out from under Ryo's weight and knocking the other off balance. Behind them stood a taller figure in a ragged and dirty brown cloak, who quickly pulled the hood off to reveal a gently smiling face. "Maruyama?" Yasu asked.

"Maru-chan," he replied, flashing them a victory sign.

"What do you mean harpies?" Ryo asked from the ground, his hand in the air waiting for Yasu to take it and pull him up.

"You know, half-woman half-bird?"

"What do they have to do with zombies?"

Maru looked at them, amazed. "They eat them. Rotting flesh is an excellent source of protein." When they didn't respond, he continued. "Someone has to, it's all part of nature. Besides, they're easy to pick off."

"Harpies and zombies are part of nature?" Ryo said, now standing. He could sort of make out a blurry outline of someone standing in front of him. "What kind of place is that normal?"

"You don't know you're in the Land of Monsters," Maru commented.

Ryo paused. "We're in the Land of Monsters? You're kind of sick, you know that?"

Maru looked at him very closely, staring into his eyes and answered somberly, "Yeah...I've heard that."

Yasu nodded in apology for Ryo's lack of acknowledgment. "He can't exactly see."

"Nobody just thinks about surfing on the beach while they're unconscious?" Ryo asked him.

"Everyone has their monsters," he replied. "You'd probably be attacked by a giant squid."

"Probably."

"Water," Maru whined. "I would kill for water. There hasn't been any here in a long time - a lot of the monsters are dying or moving on, looking for more."

"Good," Ryo commented.

"No, it's not!" Maru replied. "Even Orochi's been affected by it."

"What's Orochi?" Yasu asked.

Maru leaned back with a deep voice, waving his arms. "Orochi, King of Monsters." In a more normal stance and tone, he added, "He rules over the land even though he lives in the depths of the water. But when the water has no depth..." His smile widened. "But you're human. There aren't many humans around anymore."

"I can see why," Ryo replied.

"It's a good sign that you're here," Maru continued. "Maybe the waters will come back."

"How do you figure that? We didn't bring any with us."

"Humans are 70% made of water," he answered. "Water goes where humans go, not the other way around."

Yasu cocked his head in thought. "So we could save the land if the water came back and the water would come back if there were more humans here?"

"Yeah, I think so," Maru replied.

"So we just find more humans," he said, optimistically.

"They're pretty much gone, except Mei-chan."

"Who's Mei-chan?" he asked.

"The last woman."

"Ryo-"

"I don't like where this is going," Ryo complained. "Search through the Land of Monsters for the last girl so they- I don't like where this is going."

"If we find her, that might fix the problem," Yasu whispered. "Maybe that would bring him back. You're still willing to try, right?"

"Land of Monsters, Yasu."

Maru stuck his face into the conversation. "It wouldn't be an issue if you two didn't smell and act like prey."

"What do you mean?"

"You smell human," he answered. "You smell like the bottom of the food chain. But if you disguise it..." Maru reached inside of his cloak, fishing around in a pocket. "Here," he said, pulling out what appeared to be a dead frog. He started to rub it on Yasu's sleeves. "This will fix it."

Ryo coughed and made a face. "That's what I smelled earlier - what is that?"

"A dead frog," Maru answered, innocuously.

"You carry a dead frog around?"

"He's my pet," Maru replied.

"Your pet? You carry around a dead frog as a pet?"

"I told you," Maru said, an irritated edge to his voice. "There's no water here. He didn't used to be dead. Here." He finished Yasu and started to rub the remains of the frog on Ryo's shoulders.

"Ah! It stinks! It stinks really bad," Ryo yelled.

"Don't move, I'm doing your pants now."

"It's gross!"

"There!" Maru exclaimed proudly. "Maybe they won't take you out right away now."

"Is anything attracted to the smell of dead frog?

Maru paused. "Not around here, exactly. And I don't think we'll be around the swamps..."

"Yasu..."

"Don't worry, Ryo," he replied. "If things get bad, I'll just kick you again."

Ryo gave a sarcastic smile. "Where are we supposed to find another human?"

"The zombies would know, right?" Yasu asked.

"What?"

"Zombies used to be human," Yasu stated. "So where they are, there must be humans."

"That's stupid."

"He has a point, actually," Maru butted in. "But they roam everywhere."

"Okay," Ryo replied. "What are we going to do, go ask the zombies? Hope one of them can point us in the right direction before eating our brains?"

"Who knows where the zombies come from?" Yasu said. "The harpies. They have to be able to find their food source, right? We'll go ask them where the most zombies are. Mei might be there too."

"That's a great idea!" Maru commented. "Most of them nest on the outskirts of the city."

"Harpies just like the smell of dead humans, right?" Ryo asked.

Maru laughed nervously, rubbing his neck with his fingers. "They're kind of...voracious." A rumbling sound came from the sky, taking the two visitors off guard. "We better go now," Maru told them.

"Thunder?" Yasu asked.

"No," he answered, leading them out of the alley and onto the empty street. "The world's falling apart. Everything needs water to live, after all."

At first, they walked tentatively, bunched together with someone always glancing behind them. Ryo's neck was starting to ache from the tension of being wary when they finally crossed another living thing - one he might have missed had Maru not stopped in his tracks and caused a pile-up. "Don't look at it, just let it pass," Maru whispered to both of them.

"Don't look at what?" Ryo asked back.

"You're better off not knowing," he answered. After a moment, he exhaled and spoke at a normal level. "Okay, let's go!"

"What was it?" Ryo asked again, grabbing onto his cloak - both for attention and as a guide. "Yasu?"

"I didn't really see - kind of like a snake with a chicken head," he answered.

"If you see another one, don't look at it," Maru told them. He paused. "It's about to get worse, maybe you should just keep your head down?"

"Why don't you look at it?" Ryo asked. "Maru? Why not?"

"It'll kill you."

They turned a corner and the emptiness was gone. The sounds of living creatures - the noises and speech of animals - filled Ryo's ears. He was only too happy to take the advice and keep what little gaze he had focused on the ground. It didn't do him much good - a light blob wasn't much different from a greyish brown blob, as the streets turned from asphalt to dirt. Mixtures of smells would drift into his nose, but they were all almost overpowered by the smell of death Maru had wiped on him. He could tell that the streets were getting more and more crowded and curiosity got the best of him - he had to turn his head at the shapes around him, even though he couldn't make any of them out. Half-seeing seemed so much worse than being blind.

Especially when he felt something slither up beside him.

"Maru?" Ryo asked, tugging on the cloak again, keeping his eyes trained in front of him. "Is that...one of those chicken snake things?"

"Hm?" Maru glanced behind them. "Oh no, that's a lamia. You can look - she won't kill you."

"Oh," he said.

"Well, unless she mates with you."

"Walk faster," Ryo replied. "Wait."

He turned his head and he could barely make out the form of a woman, bare torsoed and bobbing along on her serpentine lower body. There was an obvious color change where her long hair hung against her chest, but nothing beyond that - it was the best he was going to get. "Huh," he said, before pushing on both Maru and Yasu's backs. "Walk faster," he repeated.

Yasu reached behind and took Ryo's hand and held it to walk by his side. He was too busy looking at their surroundings, the animals passing by in the street, the creatures discussing things in the alleys, the beasts hanging out of the windows lazily like clothes set out to dry. He couldn't name even half of them - and he was sure that what he did identify was mostly wrong. There were all kinds of things - humanoid, all monster - things he thought he had heard of in stories as a kid. But there were so many that he couldn't even conceive of existing, animals that could only exist in other people's imaginations. "This is amazing," he said, his smile wide. He had to avoid stepping on large red worms oozing along and floating heads with nerves dangling from severed necks like the tentacles of a jellyfish. He knew he was supposed to be repulsed by such creatures, but he couldn't help but admire their beauty. He started pointing out and asking Maru for names, what they were like - how they lived. As they rounded another corner, he stopped and watched as a large canine, taller than his waist with stripes and long legs, walked by.

"That's a crocotta," Maru told him, proudly displaying his knowledge.

"That's a crocotta," the dog echoed back as it continued on its way.

The streets became speckled with grass and the buildings were more run down, smaller, huts. A small red bird with a tail of long glowing feathers flew and landed on Yasu's shoulder, hitching a ride and preening as they walked along. He was almost too charmed by it all when the sky rumbled again. "It's all dying, isn't it?" he asked quietly.

"They live in that set of trees," Maru said, pointing off to the side.

"We made it through?" Ryo asked, looking around. He let out a small noise of exasperated relief. "That wasn't so bad."

"Told you," Maru replied. "Nothing will bother you if you know how to travel right. Just, be careful what you say to the harpies."

"You're not going?"

Maru sucked in his bottom lip and gave a pained smile. "They don't like me very much."

"That's okay," Ryo answered. "Yasu will go."

"Wait, me?" Yasu asked.

"This is amazing," Ryo deadpanned back. "Go on."

"It is, that doesn't mean I should go talk to voracious bird women alone!"

"You'll be fine," Ryo said, pushing him in what he thought was the general direction of the trees.

"I think it really needs to be a team effort."

"Right - Maru and I will cheer for you as a team from here." Ryo smiled and waved. "Have fun."

"Oi, Yasu," Maru called. "Be nice, they have really sharp teeth."

Yasu hung his head and started down the path into the forest. The small bird took the opportunity to jump on top of his head and settle in his hair. "Maybe I shouldn't have kicked him so hard. Hello?" He walked into a opening not far from the entrance of the woods. There were large nests everywhere, on jagged charred rocks and in trees crisp with dead leaves. Almost all of them were empty and he was glad that he came at what must have been feeding time.

Almost all of them were empty - he stopped short when he realized the nest not too far before him had a shaking figure with feathers flying about in it.

"Hello?" he tried again.

The shaking stopped. Out of the massive bird's wing came the face of a woman with noticeable teeth; she stood up straight, revealing her full size to be slightly larger than Yasu. He had interrupted bath time.

Yasu choked on his first words. "I'm sorry to bother you but I know you eat zombies and-"

"Eat?" she asked.

"Yes, zombies and-"

"Eat?" she repeated, glancing up at the top of his head where the small bird was still perched.

"Hm?" Yasu said, looking up. "Oh," he said, pulling the bird off and holding it in his hands. "You want to eat it?" He frowned - it hadn't done anything but land on the wrong shoulder.

"Eat?" she repeated.

Yasu walked forward, slowly, his arms outstretched with the bird in his cupped hands. If it got spooked and flew, he wasn't in the position to really stop it. He gulped. If it flew, nothing was between him and the teeth. "Here," he offered.

She cocked her head at him before hopping forward and sticking her face next to his hands, turning it to look at the bird from several angles. The small bird panicked and let out a little squawk before it tried to shove its tail feathers at her, the edges glowing with the heat of fire.

She took one bite and it was in her mouth, legs sticking out. She swallowed. Apparently fire wasn't an issue. "Eat."

Yasu smiled nervously. "Eat zombies. You like zombies? Do you know where there are a lot of zombies?"

"Hell."

"That's not really helpful."

"Hell," she repeated, glaring at him.

"Where's-"

"Hell," she said more forcefully.

"Thank you for your time!" Yasu called out, backing away and bowing in gratitude as he went, quickly. When he was clear of the trees, he turned and ran the rest of the way back to Ryo and Maru, who were leaned up against each other standing in wait. "I don't think that helped," he said, catching his breath - more from the encounter than the exercise.

"What'd they say?" Ryo asked.

"There was only one - she just kept saying eat and hell."

"Great."

"Oh," Maru said, lingering on the sound, drawing it out. "Hill."

"No, 'hell,'" Yasu replied.

Maru shook his head. "It's the same thing. The hill is where Hell is. Hell's the house of Ashmedai, King of Demons. It's not too far."

Ryo looked irritated. "How do you know all this stuff?"

"Doesn't everyone?" he asked. He smiled. "Don't worry, Ryo-chan. If there was only one in the nests, that means they're out feeding. We shouldn't have to worry too much about the zombies."

Ryo nodded, a suspicious look on his face. "Yeah," he said. "I was wondering about that." As Maru waved for them to follow, Ryo reached out his hand, feeling around for Yasu.

Yasu knew the gesture well. He saw the wandering hand and took it, putting it on his shoulder - a familiar and comfortable position for both. The terrain turned rocky and Yasu slowed down so that the half-blind Ryo wouldn't have to stumble through. He watched Maru's back as he forged ahead, a bounce in the cloaked man's step. "I want to find Mei," he whispered.

The sky rumbled above them. "Do you really think it'll help?" Ryo replied.

"I know it will. If she can't save the world, maybe she can at least save him."

"You think that's it? It's not stopping this, just finding her?"

"I don't know if this can be stopped. It's all dying, Ryo," Yasu answered. "But if she isn't what he needs to come back, then at least he won't have to die alone. At least he'll have something more than a dead frog. I don't want him to die alone, Ryo."

Ryo paused. "Are you going to tell him?"

"I think he already knows something's wrong."

Another rumble and this time the sky cracked open. Yasu and Ryo jumped in surprise as something heavy fell and hit the side of the hill, to their right, on one of the rocky outcrops. It landed with a thick sounding splat. "What was that?" Ryo asked.

Maru turned, several feet in front of them. "Looks like a small demon."

"It just fell from the sky?" Ryo barked.

"It probably died first," he said. He let out a noisy sigh of satisfaction. "We're here - there's the house."

"I think the sooner we find Mei, the better," Ryo replied, ushering Yasu to hurry up.

"Ah," he said, lingering behind and looking over his left shoulder. "Something else fell."

"Who cares?" Ryo asked. "Let's go to the house and ask this Ashmewhatever if he's seen Mei."

Yasu walked over and crouched down. "Ryo, it's a hand."

"The demon's hand?"

Yasu bit his lip. "No, it's human."

Before Ryo could really process what it meant, he set off at a faster pace up the rest of the hill, tripping and stumbling along the way. He could see the outline of a building in the distance and he could sort of see the rocks poking out of the grass. But he couldn't tell what was rock and what wasn't and caught his foot on something, sending him to the ground. "Dammit," he said, as he tried to get up. "Yasu, my foot's stuck. There's a root or something."

Yasu was jogging to catch up with him, but slowed as he came near. He stopped a few feet away. "That's hair."

Ryo scrambled backwards out of panic. "Hair?"

Maru caught up to them. "Ah, Mei-chan."

"She's dead?"

Yasu choked. "She's all over the hill."

Maru clicked his tongue. "I sort of figured she would be. Ashmedai has a reputation for this kind of thing. He really likes girls, but he doesn't take very good care of them. But I guess you can't really expect demons to be gentlemen."

"What the hell?" Ryo asked. "If you knew he liked girls, why didn't you check here first? Why didn't you check earlier?"

"I never said I was looking for Mei-chan," Maru replied. "I knew she was here."

"Then why were we looking for her?"

Maru shrugged. "You wanted to find her."

"If you knew all this, why didn't you say anything?" Yasu asked.

Maru averted his gaze, like a child caught lying. "I just wanted the company."

"You could have had company with her," Ryo yelled.

"Not really," he answered. "I would have just eaten her."

"What?" Ryo choked out.

"I eat virgins," he answered, with a slight pout, as if somewhat hurt that they didn't know. He crouched down and started poking the ground. "I never said I was human."

"Yasu...I think we need to leave."

Yasu paused in thought. He looked back and forth between his two companions, one cheerfully smiling and the other clearly scared. "Does it really make a difference? It's okay. He's right, I wanted those things."

Another rumble above their heads - the ground slightly shook. "Fine, then we spent some time with him. Our day with Maru the Monster. We should go now."

"You don't understand. Isn't that all anyone wants?" Yasu replied. "Companionship?"

Ryo stuttered. "Yeah, it is...I understand that."

"I said I didn't want him to die alone," Yasu replied, pleading settling into his face for what good it did.

"He's not," Ryo argued. "There's stuff everywhere here!"

"Being surrounded by stuff doesn't make you any less alone."

"Okay, so no girl, but-"

"I'm not going."

"What? You're just going to stay here while the world falls down? You can't, Yasu." In a panic, he started rocking his body back and forth, as hard as he could. "Tell him this isn't real and let's go."

Maru was sitting on one of the rock outcrops, smiling at him. "No need for that, Ryo-chan."

"We're leaving, Yasu," Ryo said, on the ground writhing in a fit. "We did what we could, right?"

"You just don't understand at all," Yasu told him, going to sit down by Maru.

Ryo sat up quickly, his mind racing with none of the usual techniques working. "I'm holding his head too tight," he said to himself. "Yasu, punch m-" He already knew that wasn't going to work either. He sat down in a huff, out of breath from trying. His hand landed on a rock. It resulted in an idea.

Ryo stood back up and smiled. "We're leaving now, Yasu." He ran as hard as he could down the side of the hill, tripping almost instantly.

"No, Ryo, you don't have to do that!" Yasu shouted.

He let himself fall and as soon as he hit the grass, he started to roll the rest of the way down - over rocks, letting the ground move him around violently enough to shake his real body out of the state.

The rolling stopped. Ryo was dizzy, out of breath - in pain. And he saw that he had Maruyama's face still in his hands. He sighed, exhaling deeply with a curse of relief.

Ohkura was writing in a chart. "He had a lot of trouble breathing while you were in there," he said, motioning his pen at the patient.

"That was close," Ryo said in a familiar stupor.

"More problems with the zombies?" Ohkura asked, somewhat disinterestedly.

"Not really, but that one was kind of-" Ryo stopped short. He always needed time to catch his breath and regain focus once they exited a mindscape; Yasu, on the other hand, had a considerably shorter refractory period - he could bounce almost straight into a complex conversation. Ohkura and Domoto knew to ask Yasu the questions while Ryo recovered - but this time, Ohkura was staring in his general direction.

Ryo looked down at his forearm - Yasu's hands were still there. He shook his arm and they never let go. "Yasu?" He turned to see his friend, empty eyes and blank expression staring into space.

"What's the matter?" Domoto asked.

"He's still in there," Ryo commented. "Dammit, Yasu." He carefully moved his arm back to the bed, bringing Yasu's compliant body with him, to jump again into Maruyama's mind. "Yasu? Ya-"

This had never happened before. He had never gone into a single mindscape so many times. He had never come out without Yasu in tow. And he had never seen the sky so red, black clouds gathering and shaking as the thunder crashed and chunks of debris fell to the earth. Ryo had never seen anything so clearly before in his life. And if he had had a choice, such illumination would have been saved for a better world.

"Yasu!" Ryo called. He couldn't tell where he was. There wasn't a city around, or a forest, or a hill. Just the edge of what had been a lake, the rocks and sand burnt into solid ground by the lack of rain. The bodies of some monsters scattered the horizon - most dead, some gasping last breaths like fish on dry land. But nothing truly alive. Nothing in his path, threatening to kill him with a glance or attack him for fun. No beasts at all.

Except one.

Ryo sighed, taking a break from shouting Yasu's name. Earlier, he would have heard it - the giant breathing would have pounded in his head and sat on his back like a burden. The smell would have gagged him to distraction. He might have even felt and tasted the moisture in the air.

But now that Ryo could see, he didn't notice anything until he happened to look over his shoulder and see a massive white serpent on the edge of the shoreline, with seven dragonesque heads on seven tangled and writhing necks. All seven came from one body, but the knotting and movement obscured it, making the beast look like a choppy ocean of muscle and scales and eyes.

"O-orochi?" Ryo asked.

The first head stayed fairly in the middle of the group, rising and falling like a breath. The second was sniffing along the ground, its snout grazing the edge of the sand before swooping over to a grassy field beside them. "There are no cows anymore," it complained. "There used to be so many cows."

The third and fourth were intertwined - the third with the jugular of the fourth in its mouth. Its bite was clamped on the throat hard, unrelenting, as it thrashed around, drawing out blood. The fourth lay on the ground, pathetically, with its mouth open, so exhausted from the throes of death that it could only twitch every time the third head closed its jaws tighter. The fourth's eyes were glassy and blood trickled out of its slack-jawed mouth.

The fifth stood high above the rest, swooping back and forth, agitatedly scanning the land and impatiently sneering at the rest. The sixth countered its every move, the two undulating in a double helix that should have choked both - only this head ignored the land in favor of the others, poking its face around its brethren, excitedly checking their activities.

It was the seventh that made Ryo's heart fall into his stomach, the one that made him realize that he was actually scared. The seventh lay on the ground and remained absolutely still. It unblinkingly kept its eyes on him and cradled in the curve of its neck was Yasu - held like a child in a parent's arms. Yasu's left hand rested on the seventh head, barely the size of its eye, his smile without fear. Ryo had never seen Yasu look so at ease before.

Ryo turned his attention back to the first and main head, stared into its red eyes - momentarily wondering if all creatures had the ability to kill with just a glance. "Don't eat him," he yelled with a mix of desperation and audacity, barely cutting through the thunder.

"Ryo-chan?" The sixth head shot up with an inquisitive look, quickly smiling dangerous teeth and snaking its way over the jumble to get a better look. "Ryo-chan! You came back!"

"Maru?" he asked. "You're Orochi?"

The sixth head looked slightly hurt - a too familiar expression. "You didn't know."

"Don't eat him," he repeated.

"I wouldn't," the first head said in response. It fixed its red eyes on him while the sixth head looked at the second. "I miss the cows," the second said. The sixth blinked in agreement. "Me too."

"You have to let him go," Ryo said, inching his way closer. "He can't stay with you. You're dying."

"I know," said the main head.

"Yasu told you?"

"You told me," it answered.

"This isn't real," Ryo continued.

"I know."

Ryo stumbled on his words. "You're actually somewhere else, in a vegetative state."

"I know."

"You could try to come back," he continued.

"I can't."

"Why not?" Ryo demanded.

"You don't think I can. You don't think I should."

"No! You should, I think you should!" he said, eagerness betraying the uncertainty.

"I'm lying on my back staring up in one direction with no expression on my face and I lie there all day and night long to the sounds of everything outside of me that I don't actually hear, waiting for anyone to check the tubes that make up for my immobility and tepid signs of life. The person who comes and feels my pulse can't hear my voice. If I move, it's simply to twitch, a muscle spasm reaction. Something's wrong and it won't be fixed and the world has moved on without me. I exist in my own shell. If I ever break free, the rest of my life will be spent in pain - crippled, mute and useless. I am slipping away - no one can see inside and it doesn't matter - I am barely alive. I do not exist - I am unaware."

"How- how do you know all that?"

"Because your mind is like an open door," it replied. "One that I walked through."

"You already knew? You knew when we first came in - you knew everything? You knew you were a lost cause and you didn't tell us to leave?" Ryo asked.

"I told you," it answered. "I was lonely. Your self makes for poor company."

Ryo sniffed and blinked away his sympathy. "Well you can' t have Yasu."

A chunk of red and black fell and crashed to their side - most of Orochi didn't even flinch. "The sky's falling," the sixth head said, too cheerful about the prospect. The fifth head gave him a suspicious look. "It's not your choice," it sneered. "You're an open door," the first repeated. "What did you think was on the other side?"

Yasu turned and smiled at him. "It's okay, Ryo."

"It's not okay," he argued - he instantly went from forceful with his words to hunched, staring up as the thunder broke even closer to them, startling him. "It's not okay, if you get hurt here-"

"That's you, Ryo," he answered.

"And you - your shoulder was numb after we left Massu, remember?"

Yasu shrugged. "My arms get tired holding yours for so long. It could have just been that."

"Or it could have been from being stabbed! You can't wait for the world to explode to find out for sure!"

"It'll be fine," Yasu assured him. "I'll stay until he's gone and then I'll come back."

"It doesn't work that way, Yasu."

The second head snorted. "There's nothing to eat anywhere. I'm hungry." The fifth snapped back, "Someone took everything away."

"Do you remember what Taguchi said?"

"That he was better off dead. I get what he meant now."

"No. That you have a choice."

Ryo walked up to the seventh head, no longer caring about its inexhaustible gaze, and grabbed Yasu's hand, pulling him. He only succeeded in dragging both of them into and against the scaly body. "I'm not leaving without you again."

"Do you know what it feels like, Ryo? The connection? We invade the inner most thoughts of people, stuff we can't get anyone to share in the real world - stuff they can't share even if they wanted to - and it feels like becoming part of the ocean. It feels complete - secure. I can't just walk out. I have to do what I can - I have to stay. I want to stay."

"Is this about you or them?" Ryo barked back. "You can get your fix somewhere else. I'll come over more often and you can sync up with me, okay? Just use me!"

Yasu sighed. "I thought if anyone would understand what that loneliness felt like, it'd be you. But you really just don't get it at all."

"You keep saying that," Ryo replied. "So explain it to me - what don't I get? Tell me!"

"I have been," Yasu answered. "I won't let him die alone," he repeated. "And then I'll come back."

The ground started shaking without pause. "It's time to go back to the water," the first head said. The third finally let go of the throat in its mouth, rolling its tongue about, pleasantly dripping blood from its fangs. "It's dead," it announced. The sixth nodded. "That happens." The fourth head lay still, on its side, mouth agape, nothing in its eyes.

The other six lined up, Yasu still against the seventh's neck. Seven tails appeared from behind the jumble and reached out over the corners of the land behind it, pulling back. Orochi started to recede.

Ryo looked at his feet - during the argument he hadn't seen the water appear and rise but it was already above his ankles. "Come on, Yasu," he said, still holding his hand.

Yasu squeezed back, and then pulled himself up on top of the nape. He sat down and let go.

Ryo's expectant smile fell. "Come on, Yasu!"

Orochi continued to pull back, the fourth head dragging along, water already passing through its open mouth and the hole in its throat. The water was up to Ryo's waist and the seventh head nudged him away.

Ryo ran against the rising current, sloshing through, his arm outstretched. "But you're going to die too!" he yelled.

Yasu smiled gently. "No, I'm not. I'll see you in a little bit, okay?"

The water was to Ryo's chest. He made a final lunge and was able to grab onto Yasu's arm. Orochi continued to swim back and sink in, dragging him along. The tails slipped out of sight below the surface of the water. Suddenly it was neck deep.

"Yasu, come on," Ryo pleaded, trying to keep his head above surface.

The sixth head poked up again, smiling. "Bye, Ryo-chan!"

"Yasu, please, just get take my hand. Take my hand. Take my hand, Yasu!"

The seventh head pulled under, submerging them both. Yasu continued to ride on its neck while Ryo barely hung onto his sleeve. Orochi moved fast in the water, all limbs undulating to swim deeper and deeper in the never ending water. Ryo couldn't hold his breath much longer, water forcing itself into his nose and mouth, his throat threatening to explode with air and his lungs burning. The pressure was worse - as they continued further down, it felt like someone was jamming things down his ear canals and his head pounded. His eyesight wavered under all the force and through squeezed eyeballs. Things started to grey out along the edges.

Ryo's fingers slipped - he started to float up while Orochi sped down. He tried to swim down against buoyancy, his hand still outstretched for Yasu to take. That far down he could barely see, the waters dark and the colors faded out - all but the purpleish blackblue around them and the slightest last hint of green in a spot on Yasu's hoodie. The outlines of Yasu's face got harder to distinguish, but Ryo could see him smile gently. And wave.

Ryo gasped, no longer able to hold his breath - the water flooded in. Drowning was miserable. He had the urge to cough but there was nothing in his lungs to push out the water - and no where for the water to go, anyway. His limbs got heavy and he became tired and he could feel his heart crawling to a stop. He blended with the water, nothing separated them anymore. He closed his eyes.

And opened them to the hospital room, choking.

"He's crashing," Ohkura said.

The oxygen and heart monitors on Maruyama screeched with alerts - both rapidly decreasing. "Maybe we should let him slip?" Domoto replied.

Ryo continued to cough, bent over trying to catch his breath. To his side he noticed Yasu laid out on the floor - no longer blank faced and holding on to his arm. Instead, his breathing was shallow and his eyelids fluttering. Ryo scrambled over to him, crawling on him and grabbing his head. "Yasu!"

He looked back at Ohkura and Domoto, standing still as they watched Maruyama's vitals continue to plummet. "Don't let him slip!" Ryo yelled.

They looked at him in confusion. "What's wrong with Yasuda?" Domoto asked.

"Don't let him slip!" Ryo yelled again. "Yasu's still in there! Keep him alive!"

"Shit," Ohkura said, immediately springing into action, throwing the chart aside. "I need the crash c-"

Domoto had already run out into the hall to get help.

"Let me in, Yasu," Ryo said, forcing the other's eyes open with his fingers. "Let me in."

Yasu's eyes kept rolling back into his head. Ryo shook him, trying to get them to where he could focus. When they momentarily moved back into place, he looked straight into the pupils, trying to launch himself into Yasu's mindscape.

But nothing happened.

"Yasu, let me in," Ryo growled.

Domoto came back, the on-call team in tow; Ohkura had started chest compressions on the flatlined Maruyama.

"Yasu let me in!" Ryo yelled, shaking his head. "Let me in dammit!"

Yasu was unconscious and unresponsive. A coma.

"Let me in!"

  


~

  
"Your hair looks stupid."

The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile - it was unsteady, but it moved and it moved purposefully.

"Who picked red?"

He couldn't quite turn his finger back to point to himself yet, so he winked his right eye once, their agreed upon signal.

"You did?"

He nodded slightly, as much as his neck would allow.

"It's a good thing it's temporary," Ryo said, checking his watch. "I have to go to work." He got off of the bed and grabbed his leather jacket from the chair, putting it on. "I'll see you next week. You're going to keep the red hair because I hate it, aren't you?"

Masuda Takahisa half smiled again, what he couldn't fully express with his mouth shining through his eyes instead.

"Of course," Ryo mock-muttered. "Bye Massu." He left the room, passing the physical therapy nurse on his way - a pretty young girl in a light pink uniform with a wicked charming smile.

"Did you make him point to objects?" she said.

He smiled, embarrassed and apologetic. "Not this time."

"Slacker. Hi, Massu," she said in a cute voice, walking into the room.

Ryo headed down the hallway, his left shoe untied. He left it until the elevator - an empty ride up several floors. The chime rang and he walked out on the Neuro-Intensive Care Unit floor. He passed by the desk clerk, opened the double doors to the ward and walked to the end of the hall. To that last room tucked away in the back.

Domoto stood there, waiting for him. "Our employers reminded me that I am obligated to remind you that working on the same patient over and over again is a waste of their money and blah blah blah blah blah." He pushed off of the wall and headed down the hallway.

"Where are you going?" Ryo asked.

"To get a drink. Don't be late for your actual work, huh? Ohkura gets uptight."

Ryo headed into the last room, the soft sounds of the air and the monitors floating by and the soft lighting of the bedside valance radiating out. He grabbed a chair and set it next to the bed, facing the wrong direction. He didn't bother taking his jacket off and just took a deep breath. He opened his eyes as wide as he could and stared, his hands holding steady so as not to accidentally break a connection before it started.

He sighed and let go. His shoulders dropped a bit - but he really hadn't expected otherwise.

Ryo sat in the backwards chair and rested his chin on the back. "You make me look bad, you know that, right? I don't have this problem with anyone else."

In the bed, Yasu lay staring off into space, looking peaceful and pleasant even though he wasn't smiling. The months were reflected in his hair, the color and style growing out - like the rings of a tree dating its growth.

"Hm," Ryo said, tapping his hands rhythmically. "I bet today it's...a city...with a lot of funk, you like funk right? Yeah, and crazy clothes, like platforms and your hair out to here. And you're fighting for justice against corruption. How does that sound?" He nodded his head, quickly devolving into chewing his lip and blushing. "That was weird, sorry." He smiled, slightly sinister. "One of these days I'm going to guess what it's really like in there and you'll let me in. Maybe I should start wearing sunglasses - don't want to go blind again if I actually get in."

A click sounded out and a whirring - the compression boots on Yasu's legs started, creating small waves underneath his sheets at the end of the bed. Ryo always watched his face to see if he registered a reaction when they came on - but nothing.

"I'm in trouble," he said. "It's really annoying. The hospital wants to pull Maru off life support so they can have the space back, but I'm paying for it, so what do they care? Jerks." Ryo paused and looked at Yasu. "What should I do?"

Nothing.

"As long as he's going, you're here, right?"

Nothing.

"If he dies, you die, right?"

Nothing.

"Or is that what's holding you back? You can't leave until he's dead - am I supposed to let him go? Does that bring you back?"

Nothing.

"Am I keeping you alive or standing in the way?"

Nothing.

"If you'd just let me in, I could find out."

Nothing.

"What do I do, Yasu?" He looked up again - Yasu's eyes had closed. "Are you even awake?"

Nothing.

"Am I?"

Ryo rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, sighing. "Ah, you're really hard to talk to, you know that?" He chewed on his lip and looked down. "It sucks without you." He started tapping his hands on the back of the seat again - briefly wondering how it was that the person Yasu connected with the most was now the most remote. Ryo hated it. It felt like losing feeling in his limbs - like being extinguished.

He stood up and replaced the chair against the wall. "I have to go to work." He picked up a chart at the end of the bed and flipped to the right page. He scribbled in, "Continues to show improvement," and forged a doctor's name - under several identical comments.

Before he left, he went into the patient room bathroom - his hands were sweaty, it always happened during his visits. He flipped the water on and started to lather, a creeping feeling at his exposed neck. When he turned the water off and shook the excess, he looked up at the mirror above the sink. Sometimes he didn't recognize his own face - he only ever briefly looked at himself anyway. He wondered if his eyes looked as droopy in the mindscapes of others - just as tired. Was he an accurate reflection, or Yasu's distorted view, like those in his paintings? Or did he look like a monster, some serpent tongued beast charging through the land, come neither to save or redeem but to destroy - a grotesque god determining the fate of worlds by the blood in his hands? Did he look like he might in dreams? Did he look exactly as he was, standing there before the wet, forgotten sink? Did he look like anything at all?

Ryo took a deep breath, stood still and stared into his own eyes in the reflection of the mirror.


End file.
